Sania Nishtar: thoughts and priorities from my first ten days in charge of Gavi
Gavi’s new CEO shares her first impressions and urgent priorities after a packed first ten days at the helm of the Vaccine Alliance.
- 5 April 2024
- 4 min read
- by Sania Nishtar
On 2 April I completed my first ten days in charge of Gavi. At this early juncture I wanted to share some of the lessons I’ve taken on board from this brief but intense period of immersion in the organisation, meeting staff and partners, and embarking on my first visit to Gavi implementing countries to understand more about their priorities and challenges. Equally importantly, I wanted to share my five urgent priorities for the coming months.
1. Finalising Gavi’s sixth strategy
Foremost among my priorities is facilitating the development of the Gavi 2026–30 Strategy – the organisation’s sixth five-year strategic cycle. Throughout the development of the strategy, which began in March 2023, the Board has sought to ensure that the countries that Gavi supports have a major say in how the strategy is shaped.
Over the past 12 months, countries have fed into the largest consultative process that Gavi has undertaken to date, and their recommendations will now go to the Gavi Board, who will meet in mid-April to consider the new strategy before making a final decision on our sixth strategy in June.
2. Ensuring a successful replenishment
The finalisation of the sixth Gavi strategy will be followed by the launch of Gavi’s Investment Opportunity on 20 June, at a high-level event co-hosted in Paris by the Government of France, the African Union and Gavi. This will kick off the road to Gavi’s replenishment, and with it a period of intense engagement with donors from government, business and philanthropies aimed at securing enough support from donors to fund the Alliance’s work to 2030.
Our focus on replenishment is of existential importance. At Gavi, our mission to save millions of lives hinges on our ability to mobilise adequate resources. We have a brilliant and accomplished team in place, and the arguments on our side, so I’m optimistic that we can hit our funding targets despite the challenging external environment – geopolitical and economic – as we embark upon this journey. I have already met representatives from key donor governments in London and Paris, and look forward to meeting many more in the days, weeks and months ahead. I hope we can count on your support as we continue our mission.
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3. Translating learning into a 180-day plan for action
I have been overwhelmed by the welcome I have received from colleagues, partners and representatives from countries. The insights they have shared with me will play a key role in shaping the development of my 180-day Action Plan to gear our organisation’s structure and ways of working for the challenges of today and meeting our 5.1 goals, and tomorrow as we look towards our next five-year strategy.
Central to our success is how we further optimise our support to implementing countries affected by conflict, fragility and insecurity. My meetings with Africa CDC and partnering country ministers at the Africa Union-European Union Summit gave me many useful insights. To add to them, I have also prioritised meeting partners, communities and health workers on the ground, to learn more about the daily challenges they face and the successes we can build on.
To that end, on 31 March I embarked on a week-long trip to the Central African Republic and Nigeria to learn first-hand about the challenges faced by our partners and communities in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
4. Addressing burning issues within the organisation
Naturally, after a period without a permanent CEO, and in a period of significant organisational change in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are a number of urgent issues to address within the organisation, both in terms of structure and ways of working and in terms of culture.
I am committed to dealing with these issues methodically and transparently through a process of rules-based and constructive engagement. Under my leadership I will ensure that Gavi is equitable, inclusive and a safe space to dissent.
5. Creating an efficient and transparent office of the CEO
Delivering our near-term and long-term priorities and objectives will mean a new way of doing business, with an established Office of the CEO operating according to standardised procedures and with rapid access to the latest organisational and operational data to facilitate transformation and delivery in the months and years ahead.
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