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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

“My time at the UFS was the golden gem of my career”

2016-07-04

Description: Zig Gibson Tags: Zig Gibson

Prof Alan St Clair Gibson
Photo: Oteng Mpete

“My time at the University of the Free State (UFS) was the golden gem of my career. I have worked at medical schools or biomedical research centres in the United Kingdom, United States and at some of the top medical schools in South Africa, but working at the UFS was one of the highlights of my career,” says Prof Alan St Clair Gibson, Head of the UFS School of Medicine.

After spending just over two years at the UFS, Prof St Clair Gibson resigned from the institution in June 2016 and will take up the position of Dean: Health and Human Performance Sciences at the Waikato University in New Zealand in mid-July, where he will assist to establish a new faculty for all the health-science disciplines. “It was a privilege to work at the UFS. I come from a strong research background and wanted to grow research at the university, which I achieved. I came to the UFS because of the Academic and Human Projects and am proud of what has been achieved at the School of Medicine during the time I was here,” he said.

Prof St Clair Gibson highlighted some of these achievements, including the development of a management infrastructure across the disciplines of the school. “The establishment of an executive management committee for the school, as well as research champions in departments, highlighted the importance of proper governance and strategic management. By developing data dashboards, my management team and I could develop an understanding of research income and productivity, how the school works, what the role of teaching and learning is, and how the school could benefit in terms of third-stream income from the many contracts obtained by its academic staff. As a result, contracts and the financial management model of the school have also been reconfigured to the benefit of the university so that the institution and school can benefit from it,” he said.

His strong belief in an open-door policy has made staff feel part of the environment and it has created an atmosphere of equality and inclusivity. He believes in staff development and has, for instance, established leadership and management courses for heads of departments. Another factor to be proud of is the increase in the number of young researchers who recently joined the school, such as Prof Ross Tucker, who is one of the foremost sport scientists in the country. “It is a fact that staff retire or resign in all schools and departments of any university. It is also true that these departures offer opportunities to bring new academic and professional staff into the UFS. In fact, for the first time virtually every department in the School of Medicine now has a full-time Head of Department and 46 new staff were appointed since January 2015,” said Prof St Clair Gibson.

“I am especially proud of contributing, together with the senior leadership of the UFS, to stabilise the relationship with the Free State Department of Health (DoH). With the assistance of these parties, as well as my executive management team, we could find a better way of working together to the benefit of the school and the province.’’

Transforming the student profile to be representative of the country’s demographics is another milestone Prof St Clair Gibson will remember. “The intake of black and white students is of such a nature that we now have a much more balanced ratio of black and white undergraduate students than before.”

“I wanted to stay longer to see the effect of all the changes I made at the school, but the deanship is an offer I cannot refuse. I would have liked to see a steadier increase in the number of permanent clinical staff and have worked hard with both the UFS management and the DoH to try and achieve that; but more work needs to be done.”

I have worked with a number of fantastic staff members at the school, who are determined to do good in a challenging environment. I am amazed at the energy of the university leadership and how the Human and Academic Projects are executed. My wish for the university is to maintain and grow its standards and for the School of Medicine to maintain its reputation as one of the best schools in the country. I will always be a proud alumnus of the UFS,” he said.

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