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Ms Anne Githuku-Shongwe
Director, Regional Support Team, East and South Africa, UNAIDS
Topic: Supporting Innovation and People-centred , Integrated Responses to end AIDS.
Ms Anne Githuku-Shongwe joins the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) as the Director, Regional Support Team, East and South Africa, based in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa. She brings to her role 20 years of experience as a senior international development professional including with the United Nations Development Programme across Africa and Management consulting in the United States of America.
Ms Anne Githuku-Shongwe last posting was as Representative for UN Women's South Africa Multi-Country Office (SAMCO), which is responsible for women's empowerment and gender equality in Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia as well as South Africa.
Ms Anne Githuku-Shongwe has been an award-winning social entrepreneur and founder of AROES, a Digital & Gamification Learning enterprise and a thought leader on the Future of Learning.
Ms Anne Githuku-Shongwe and AFROES received multiple awards including the prestigious Schwab Foundation/World Economic Forum Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2013 Award and a National Award – the Order of the Grand Warrior from the President of Kenya. Other awards include the PeaceAPP award of the UN, MEFFYs Award, London UK and Netexplo Award, Paris to name a few.
Ms Anne Githuku-Shongwe is an Author contributor in several books including the 2021 The Write to Speak: A collection of stories by African Women Leaders, Kenya@50 and Turning a Crisis into an Opportunity: The HIV Response in Lesotho, 2004. She is also a Board Member and Grand Juror of the World Summit Awards for the UN Information Society and a former Global Ambassador of the Vital Voices Leadership Program.
She has a Masters’ degree in International Development from The American University; a certificate in Social Innovation from the University of Cape Town, Graduate School of Business, a certificate in The Art of Large Scale Systems Change for Social Entrepreneurship from Harvard University and a Management Certificate from Jones International University.