Akihito Watabe
Executive Master in Change, INSEAD
(Japan)
Dr. Watabe is a change agent trainee of the Executive Master in Change, INSEAD. He is also a core team member of UHC2030, a multi-stakeholder partnership for universal health coverage (UHC). He has been leading UHC2030’s global health diplomacy and political coordination work, such as the UHC Movement Political Advisory Panel, the UN High-level Meeting on UHC, the International UHC Day, and the State of UHC Commitment.
Dr. Watabe holds a medical license (Board Certificated Fellow of the Social Medicine) and graduated from Kitasato University School of Medicine. He earned his Ph.D. in Medicine from Juntendo University, and M.Sc. in Health Policy, Planning, and Financing from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Dr. Watabe started his Global Health career with the International Federation of Medical Students Association. After his clinical work at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Japan, he worked in Vanuatu as a public health advisor. In 2013, He was recruited as a health economist by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan, to serve Prime Minister’s flagship foreign policy in Global Health, including setting UHC target 3.8 in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From 2015 to 2017, as a health financing officer of the World Health Organization, he contributed to developing the SDG monitoring framework, particularly UHC indicators 3.8.1 and 3.8.2. He also made special efforts to establish UHC2030 by mobilizing the G7 (Ise-Shima, 2016) and the G20 (Hamburg, 2017) political commitments.