Marleen Temmerman, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is Director of the Center of Excellence in Women and Child Health and Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Aga Khan University East Africa in Nairobi.

She is also United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Chair on Youth Leadership in Science, Health, Gender and Education.

Previously she was Director of the Department of Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organization. Temmerman is the Founding Director of the International Centre of Reproductive Health at Ghent University, Belgium, with associated research organizations in Kenya and Mozambique, and a large global collaborative academic network of 27 universities globally.

 

Temmerman was previously a Senator in the Belgian Parliament where she was a member of the Commission on Social Affairs, and Chair of the Commission on Foreign Affairs. In that capacity, she was a member of the European Parliamentary Forum, and Chair of the HIV/AIDS Advisory Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. She served as a member of the independent Expert Review Group, convened by UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon, to raise accountability in the Every Woman, Every Child platform, and was a contributor to the Global Strategy for Women's, Children’s and Adolescents' Health 2016–2030.

 

Temmerman's academic and advocacy commitments have enabled her to be effective working with governments, multilateral organizations, academia, professional bodies, development agencies, private sector, consultancy agencies, civil society, and non-governmental and faith-based organizations.