Robert Kwame deGraft Agyarko is a Global Health and International Development practitioner with 25 years of experience, known for his expertise and advocacy on public health issues, poverty alleviation, and equity, and has provided advice and technical support to over 20 African countries in disease management and control of infectious diseases, including Malaria and HIV/AIDS, and Ebola and most recently, COVID-19.Â
He is currently the Lead Advisor of Disease Outbreaks at the African Risk Capacity (ARC), a specialised agency of the African Union. He joined ARC from the World Health Organization’s Health Security and Emergencies Programme, WHO/AFRO. Previously, he has worked in leadership positions with the World Health Organization HQ and Regional Office AFRO, with UNICEF, the Global Fund and ALMA. From 2015-16, he served as the Strategic and Technical Advisor to the Deputy Minister of Health of Ghana and Manager of the Ghana Emergency Operations Centre for Ebola.
Robert is a Chevening Scholar, an ex-Independent Study Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS, UK), an Aspen Senior New Voices Fellow, a member of the WHO Technical Advisory Group for Universal Health and Preparedness Review (UHPR) member of the Technical Review Committee for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM).
He holds an MSc. in Global Public Health from The Queen Mary University of London; an MA in Rural Development from the University of Sussex, UK; a Certificate in Epidemiology and biostatistics from John Hopkins School of Public Health, USA; and a Bachelor of Arts in Geography & Sociology from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST, Ghana.