Prof. Emmanuel Malabo Makasa
Member of the High-Level Council
FCSECSA, MPH, MMed(Orth), MBChB, BSc.HB
Professor Makasa is an Adjunct Professor of Global Surgery and the Founding Director of the Southern Africa Development Community’s University of Witwatersrand Regional Collaboration Centre for Surgical Healthcare Improvement (WitSSurg). He chairs the regional SADC Technical Experts Working Group on Surgical Healthcare. Prof. Makasa is a strong advocate for strengthened health systems for surgical healthcare improvement, he has mobilised and coordinated multiple stakeholders in the clinical care, public health and the development ecosystems. He has presented on and published about safe, equitable and affordable universal access to emergency care, critical care and operative care services in Surgery, Obstetrics and Anaesthesia healthcare under the ubrella of Universal Health Coverage, Emergency Preparedness and Response and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
Professor Makasa is a consultant and global health deplomat on global, regional and national surgical health policy, programs and service delivery supporting the sixteen SADC Member States, the World Health Organisation (WHO), including the European Investment Bank (EIB). He previouly served as the Republic of Zambia’s Global Health Diplomat at the United Nations in Geneva and Vienna (2012-2017) during which time he chaired and led negotiations resulting in resolution WHA67.15, WHA68.15 and Decision WHA70(22). He was technical coordinator of the “African Health Experts” - Health Attachés from the African Union’s Permanent Missions at the UN in Geneva for the year 2014.
Prof. Emmanuel Malabo Makasa has senior health systems management experience, having served as Director (H) in the Office of the President (PSMD) of the Republic of Zambia; as Deputy Director responsible for Emergency Health Services and as Assistant Registrar Licensure of the Health Professionals Council of Zambia. He is a practicing consultant Orthopaedics & Trauma surgeon for the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Zambia, based at the University Teaching Hospitals, with interests in musculoskeletal health for children and adolescents.
Professionally, he serves as Honorary Lecturer in Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery for the University of Zambia, School of Medicine. He is a honorary Fellow of the College of Surgeons of East Central & Southern Africa (COSECSA). He also currently serves as a member of the World Health Organisations Expert Advisory Panel on Surgical Care and Anaesthesia (2019-2022); as a member of the Advisory Board of the Pan African Association of Surgeons (PAAS), a member of the Board of Trustees of the Lusaka Orthopaedics Research & Education Trust (LORET) and the Executive Board of Africa Directions (AD) - a community based Lusaka NGO. Prof. Makasa is a member of the Leadership Team of the Global Surgery Foundation (GSF) that is currently hosted by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR and served as a member of the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS). He previously served as the Secretary General of the Zambia Medical Association (2007-2008) and as Secretary General of the Surgical Society of Zambia (2006-2007). He was a Visiting Scholar (2018) of the American College of Surgeons (ACS); the Hugh Greenwood Speaker (2017) at the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons (BAPS) and the A J Orenstein Lecturer (2017) at the University of Witwatersrand.
A Fulbright Scholar in Public Health Epidemiology (2007-2009) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) under the Department of State of the United States of America, Prof E M Makasa is also the COSECSA Rahima Dawood Travelling Fellow for the year 2020/21.
