Michael Mbizvo, MD

Dr Michael T. Mbizvo is the Zambia Country Director of the Population Council, and a Senior Associate. This, inter alia, entails providing research, scientific, technical and administrative leadership and oversight in the programmatic areas of Reproductive Health; HIV and AIDS; and Poverty, Gender and Youth. He has constant dialogue with Government Ministers, Country Missions and parliamentarians to share research evidence in support of policy and strengthening programs to improve health, social and development outcomes. At the invitation of the then Minister of Gender, he presented research findings on adolescent pregnancy and child marriage to 8 Government Ministers and other stakeholders. With support from UNESCO and UNFPA, he is coordinating a study with the Ministries of Education and Health, to develop and test a model that links comprehensive sexuality education with access to health services. He has presented initial findings on status of adolescent sexual and reproductive health to the Parliamentary Committee on Health.
A Professor in Reproductive Health Sciences, he has undergraduate and postgraduate teaching experience from the College of Health Sciences, University of Zimbabwe. He worked for the World Health Organization (WHO) at its headquarters in Geneva, for more than 15 years in several senior roles, until becoming the Director of WHO's Department of Reproductive Health and Research (RHR), which includes HRP, a co-sponsored UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme for Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction. He is widely published and has presented at many international conferences.