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Prof Motlalepula Matsabisa elected co-chair of WHO Global Traditional Medicine Summit steering committee

25 June 2025 | Story Andre Damons | Photo Andre Damons

Prof Matlalepula Matsabisa — Prof Motlalepula Matsabisa, renowned African Traditional Medicine expert and pharmacology researcher from the University of the Free State (UFS) will co-chair the World Health Organisation Global Traditional Medicine Summit steering committee.

Prof Motlalepula Matsabisa, renowned African Traditional Medicine expert and pharmacology researcher from the University of the Free State (UFS) has recently been elected a co-chairperson of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Traditional Medicine Summit steering committee. The other co-chairperson is Dr Goh Cheng Soon from Malaysia.

The steering committee, which is appointed for one year, will help the WHO to organise the WHO Traditional Medicines Global Summit taking place later this year in New Delhi, India. The steering committee is also an advisory body to the WHO and the Global Traditional Medicine Centre to provide reviews and recommendations for the WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit coordination, propose summit sessions and session speakers. This committee has 15 members from South Africa, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, India, China, Bhutan, Germany, Brazil, Egypt, New Zealand, US, Netherlands, Switzerland and Bolivia.

Prof Matsabisa, Research Director of the African Medicines Innovations and Technologies Development (AMITD) platform at the UFS, is also the chairperson of the WHO Africa Regional Expert Advisory Committee on Traditional Medicine (REACT).

Responsibility of the committee

“Once more this is an honour for me to take this task and lead a group of experts – not just from the African continent where I am currently the chairperson of the WHO Afro REACT committee, but now I chair experts from all the continents and all six WHO geographical regions – namely Africa (Afro), the Americas (AMRO), the eastern Mediterranean (EMRO), Europe (EURO), South East Asia (SEARO) and the Western Pacific (WPRO). I chair a worldwide group of experts,” says Prof Matsabisa.

According to him, the committee will work with WHO to design the summit programme, identify summit sessions and session speakers, as well as recommend ministers to be in the round-table discussions. The committee will also be responsible for the design of the exhibitions that will showcase traditional medicine products and practices across all six WHO regions. The identification of the sessions will be around action and delivery on the priority agenda from the past 2023 WHO Global summit as well as from the deliverables of the WHO 2025-2034 Traditional Medicines strategy.

The theme for the WHO Traditional Medicines Global Summit is “Restoring balance for people and planet. The science and practice of health and well-being”. They anticipate attracting 6 000 people, from all over, to attend the summit with at least 1 000 in-person attendees and another 5 000 online participants.

The committee will look at the first WHO 2023 Traditional Medicines Global summit and its Gujarat Declaration where the Traditional Medicine (TM) priority agenda was set – this priority agenda included global leadership, research and evidence, universal health coverage (UHC), primary health care (PHC) health systems, data and routine information systems, biodiversity and sustainability.

Market the UFS

When a call for applications to serve on the steering committee went out, Prof Matsabisa applied and was later approached by the WHO to chair the steering and advisory committee. “I see this as an opportunity to serve the WHO and use my knowledge and skills to serve the world. I felt very honoured to have been approached for such an important job and role to undertake. As a chairperson, I will guide the committee, take responsibility for the planning and implementation of the summit. I will market the summit. I shall be the direct link between the WHO in Geneva and the committee.”

Prof Matsabisa indicated that he will use the chairmanship to market and internationalise the UFS AMITD programme and give it a further global outlook. He will also find new collaborators and potential funders and investors for projects and activities of the UFS and secure activities that will help find and fund global postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars. This will be good for the AMITD platform.

“The steering committee shall set the 2nd WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit theme for scale up learning, collaboration and action,” says Prof Matsabisa. “Therefore, the committee will design the summit programme to address these and take themes and discussions from high-level political commitments, building on UNGA, WHA, G20, BRICS, and AU etc. Launches of the WHO Global TM Library on Traditional Medicine; WHO Bulletin special issue on Traditional Medicine; TM Innovation and Investment Initiative; Global TM Research Roadmap; Global TM Data Network; and Learnings from Indigenous Knowledge will also take place.”

Furthermore, advancements of healthy ecosystems and TM integration and encouraging indigenous people's knowledge exchange; and AI and TM governance course/ brief as well as the advancing of cross-cutting frameworks for TM-related ethics, rights, IP, equitable access and benefits are on the agenda.

News Archive

“To forgive is not an obligation. It’s a choice.” – Prof Minow during Reconciliation Lecture

2014-03-05

“To forgive is not an obligation. It’s a choice.” – Prof Minow during the Third Annual Reconciliation Lecture entitled Forgiveness, Law and Justice.
Photo: Johan Roux

No one could have anticipated the atmosphere in which Prof Martha Minow would visit the Bloemfontein Campus. And no one could have predicted how apt the timing of her message would be. As this formidable Dean of Harvard University’s Law School stepped behind the podium, a latent tension edged through the crowded audience.

“The issue of getting along after conflict is urgent.”

With these few words, Prof Minow exposed the essence of not only her lecture, but also the central concern of the entire university community.

As an expert on issues surrounding racial justice, Prof Minow has worked across the globe in post-conflict societies. How can we prevent atrocities from happening? she asked. Her answer was an honest, “I don’t know.” What she is certain of, on the other hand, is that the usual practice of either silence or retribution does not work. “I think that silence produces rage – understandably – and retribution produces the cycle of violence. Rather than ignoring what happens, rather than retribution, it would be good to reach for something more.” This is where reconciliation comes in.

Prof Minow put forward the idea that forgiveness should accompany reconciliation efforts. She defined forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to forego rightful grounds of resentment towards those who have committed a wrong. “To forgive then, in this definition, is not an obligation. It’s a choice. And it’s held by the one who was harmed,” she explained.

Letting go of resentment cannot be forced – not even by the law. What the law can do, though, is either to encourage or discourage forgiveness. Prof Minow showed how the law can construct adversarial processes that render forgiveness less likely, when indeed its intention was the opposite. “Or, law can give people chances to meet together in spaces where they may apologise and they may forgive,” she continued. This point introduced some surprising revelations about our Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Indeed, studies do report ambivalence, disappointment and mixed views about the TRC. Whatever our views are on its success, Prof Minow reported that people across the world wonder how South African did it. “It may not work entirely inside the country; outside the country it’s had a huge effect. It’s a touchstone for transitional justice.”

The TRC “seems to have coincided with, and maybe contributed to, the relatively peaceful political transition to democracy that is, frankly, an absolute miracle.” What came as a surprise to many is this: the fact that the TRC has affected transitional justice efforts in forty jurisdictions, including Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia and Liberia. It has even inspired the creation of a TRC in Greensborough, North Carolina, in the United States.

There are no blueprints for solving conflict, though. “But the possibility of something other than criminal trials, something other than war, something other than silence – that’s why the TRC, I think, has been such an exemplar to the world,” she commended.

Court decision cannot rebuild a society, though. Only individuals can forgive. Only individuals can start with purposeful, daily decisions to forgive and forge a common future. Forgiveness is rather like kindness, she suggested. It’s a resource without limits. It’s not scarce like water or money. It’s within our reach. But if it’s forced, it’s not forgiveness.

“It is good,” Prof Minow warned, “to be cautious about the use of law to deliberately shape or manipulate the feelings of any individual. But it is no less important to admit that law does affect human beings, not just in its results, but in its process.” And then we must take responsibility for how we use that law.

“A government can judge, but only people can forgive.” As Prof Minow’s words lingered, the air suddenly seemed a bit more buoyant.

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