Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari

Appointed as Advisor to the Prime Minister for Public Health Affairs in November 2024, HE Dr. Hanan served as the Minister of Public Health for the State of Qatar from 2016 to 2024. Her Excellency was also Managing Director of Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) from 2007 to 2024, leading Qatar’s largest public health provider for 17 years. Underher leadership HMC transformed into an integrated academic health system, composed of 17 hospitals and centers employing 31,000 health workers, achieving numerous international accreditations and awards. During her 8-year tenure as Minister of Public Health, she launched and executed numerous national health strategies, chaired the National Covid-19 Committee leading the State of Qatar’s successful Covid-19 pandemic response and oversaw the country’s medical services readiness for hosting a safe FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 at the tail end of the pandemic. Under Her Excellency’s leadership, a strong partnership with the World Health Organization was established with many achievements such as the formation of several WHO Collaborating Centers. These include “Treating Tobacco Dependence”, “Healthy Ageing and Dementia” and “Trauma” in HMC as well as at two prestigious universities: “Research and Capacity building on emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases” in Qatar University and the center for "Combating COVID-19 and other selected infectious diseases in the region” in Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar. Through a successful cross-Ministerial partnership, Qatar was the first country in the Eastern Mediterranean region to have all of its municipalities certified by WHO as "Healthy Cities", in addition to Qatar University as a "Healthy University" as well as Qatar Foundation Education City as a "Healthy Education City". HE Dr. Hanan sits on a number of boards and committees. She currently co-chairs the Joint Advisory Board of Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar (WCMC-Q) and is a member of Sidra Medicine’s Board of Governors, Board of the Qatar Precision Health Institute (QPHI) as well as the Steering Committee for the World Innovation Summit for Health. She is also a member of Qatar University’s Board of Regents. At the global health level, HE Dr. Hanan is currently a member of the World Health Organization’s Executive Board and was Chair from 2023-2024 during which time she helped finalize the General Programme of Work 2025-2028 (GPW14) that was approved at the 77th World Health Assembly in May 2024 and as part of WHO reform programs sought to increase transparency at the election of the Regional Directors. HE Dr Hanan is also currently Chair of the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Committee, a region with unprecedented conflict and damage to health systems. HE Dr. Hanan has received several awards in recognition of her achievements in the health care industry. In 2018 she was elected as a member of the US National Academy of Medicine in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of health and in 2022 was awarded the WHO Director General's ‘Health Champions’ award in recognition of outstanding action and advocacy in global health promotion and security. In 2023, Forbes’ list of “Top Healthcare Leaders 2023” ranked HE Dr. Hanan third among 100 healthcare leaders in the Middle East by Forbes Middle East. Recently in 2024, HE Dr. Hanan was honored with the ‘Best Minister Award’ at the World Governments Summit for her transformative leadership in public health and long record of accomplishments that align closely with the award’s focus areas of socio-economic impact, innovation, resilience, future-readiness, good governance and integrity. Following completion of her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in healthcare management, she obtained a PhD in Healthcare Management from Brunel University in the UK in 2002. HE Dr Hanan also co-authored numerous articles.