Nick Banatvala is currently Senior Adviser to the Assistant Director General, Non Communicable Diseases and Mental Health at the World Health Organization in Geneva. Prior to this, Nick was Head of Global Affairs at the Department of Health in England. where among other responsibilities he has led the development and implementation of the UK Government's first-ever global health strategy and its strategy for working with WHO. Before that, he headed up the UK Department for International Development’s work on global health partnerships and initiatives and scaling up health services during which time he led the health inputs for the 2005 G8 Gleneagles communiqué. He has represented the UK on a number of international initiatives, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation. Prior to this, Nick worked for DFID on a range of health programmes in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Nick also has experience of the NGO sector, having worked for Merlin on a variety of humanitarian programmes.
Nick trained in paediatrics and infectious diseases and has done public health and epidemiologic research in the UK and at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. He has held senior posts in UK public health - leading a range of initiatives on non communicable diseases.
Nick has sat on a range of government, non government and academic boards, as well as national and international committees. He has undertaken consultancies for a range of agencies including the World Bank. Nick also has a Chair in Global Health at Manchester University and a Senior Lectureship at Imperial College, London.
