Keizo Takemi

Keizo Takemi is Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan. He was a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health from November 2007 to June 2009. He is also a visiting professor at a number of universities around the country including Nagasaki University. Professor Takemi has been involved with various global initiatives focusing on global health, including the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health, Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA), WHO Expert Working Group on R&D Financing, and the international organizing committee of the Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC). In March 2016, he was appointed to the UN High Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth. In 2018, he was appointed to the UHC Financing Advisory Committee for the G20 2019. In addition, he is Vice Chair of the International Oversight Board for the National Academy of Medicine’s Global Roadmap for Healthy Longevity (USA). He has also been serving as the chair of the Parliamentary Caucus on Stop TB Partnership as well as of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD). Professor Takemi served in the House of Councillors from 1995 to 2007, then returned to the Diet in December 2012 and was just re-elected in July 2019. During his previous tenure in the Diet, he served in the first Abe administration’s cabinet as Senior Vice Minister for Health, Labour and Welfare. He led the initiative to establish the UN Trust Fund for Human Security when he was State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in 1999 and was subsequently named by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to serve as a member of the High Level Panel on UN System-Wide Coherence in Areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance and Environment. He has been a senior fellow with the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE) since 2007, where he is the chair of the Executive Committee of the Global Health and Human Security Program. In recognition of his contributions to the field over the past decade, he was appointed WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in July 2019.