Science, Medicine & Engineering
Landmark
Agnes Binagwaho
born 1955
Built the health system that took Rwanda from ruin to universal coverage
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Rwanda Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
A paediatrician who returned after the genocide to a country with almost no doctors left, served as minister of health, and oversaw one of the fastest improvements in national health ever recorded anywhere.
Agnes Binagwaho trained in medicine in Belgium and France and returned to Rwanda in 1996, two years after the genocide, to a health system that had lost most of its staff to murder or flight.
She was permanent secretary and then, from 2011 to 2016, Minister of Health. Over that period Rwanda built community-based health insurance covering the great majority of the population, cut child mortality and deaths from HIV, tuberculosis and malaria by margins few countries have matched, and became the first low-income country to vaccinate most of its girls against the virus that causes cervical cancer. She co-founded the University of Global Health Equity and served as its first vice-chancellor, and she has argued at length — and publicly, against donors — that poor countries should design their own health systems rather than receive them.
She was permanent secretary and then, from 2011 to 2016, Minister of Health. Over that period Rwanda built community-based health insurance covering the great majority of the population, cut child mortality and deaths from HIV, tuberculosis and malaria by margins few countries have matched, and became the first low-income country to vaccinate most of its girls against the virus that causes cervical cancer. She co-founded the University of Global Health Equity and served as its first vice-chancellor, and she has argued at length — and publicly, against donors — that poor countries should design their own health systems rather than receive them.
- Wikipedia — Agnes Binagwaho
- University of Global Health Equity — Prof. Agnes Binagwaho
- The Lancet — Agnes Binagwaho: from paediatrician to health minister
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