GA 2025 Program

MSF Movement Evolution:

Dr. Engy ALI, MSF Luxembourg President

Dr Engy ALI is a medical doctor specialized in Critical Care medicine and public health with more than 20 years’ experience working in the medical and humanitarian field.  During her twelve years working with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Luxembourg, she worked in as an Operational Research Advisor in the Luxembourg Operational Research Unit (LuxOR), supporting field research projects focusing in humanitarian action in Bangladesh, Kenya, Somalia, Nigeria, Lebanon, Syria, Haiti, Liberia, DRC, Philippines, Egypt, Pakistan, and in Europe. During her professional journey, she had worked in several medical and coordination capacities in MSF as a medical coordinator, field coordinator and epidemiologist. As an operational Research fellow, she was involved in the capacity building and development of MSF specific training on operational research, known as SORT IT. She has authored over 50 Publications in scientific journals and written chapters of several books. Dr Ali joined MSF Luxembourg Association Board as a member in 2022. She is currently working for the Luxembourg Health Directorate as Senior Medical Advisor focusing on health care system and as the country focal point for scaling-up integrated care.

Sophie Weidenbach,Transformational Portfolio Lead, MSF International

Sophie is a governance and strategy specialist at MSF International, where she coordinates movement-wide initiatives on governance, the Agenda for Transformation and now SPARC. With over a decade of experience aligning leadership and Boards in complex humanitarian organisations, including MSF, Amnesty International as well as social justice networks, Sophie brings clarity, diplomacy and just enough patience to keep tricky projects on track. Title aside, as Transformational Portfolio Lead, Sophie’s focus remains on advancing principled, people-centred humanitarian action.

Paul Yon, Director of Communications and Association, MSF WaCA

With 19 years' experience in operations, mainly as Head of Mission in war-torn contexts (Iraq, Syria, Chad, Sudan, Burundi) but also in countries requiring complex negotiations (North Korea, Myanmar, etc.), Paul then worked with the President of MSF international for several years to boost the Associative component of our organisation.

For four years, he served as Director of Communications and Association at MSF WaCA, actively contributing to the establishment of the first operational entity based outside of Europe. He is now the Director of Communications at MSF WaCA.

Passionate about the Associative model, Paul has worked with his colleagues to develop the AssociActeurs and Asso-Ops concepts

Taking care of victims of sexual violence:

Wilma Van Den Boogaard, Operational Research Advisor, LuxOR

After 10 years of (intensive care) nursing in Holland she left for humanitarian aid in Indonesia as a volunteer before deciding to join up with MSF. This is more than 30 years ago. She started with MSF in 1993, in emergencies as a nurse supervisor, nutrition assistant and medical team leader before doing a masters in health promotion. Since then she worked in regular projects as health promoter and field coordinator and eventually started in 2001 as medical coordinator as she’d started a family. She worked and lived in more than 10 countries on long term missions mainly in Africa but also in Asia. After finalizing her Masters in Public Health in 2010, she started working in the operational research unit (LuxOR) initially as the program officer and later as an operational research advisor through using qualitative and quantitative research methodologies mainly on the topics related to migration- and mental health but in particular sexual and reproductive health (SRH), being lately more and more SGBV related. This through field visits, dedicated OR trainings and online coaching and mentoring. She still goes sometimes to the field for gap fills in medical coordination positions, which was recently in Haiti for a SRH project with a large sexual violence component.

Claire Reading Zombo,Sexual and Reproductive Health Advisors , MSF Belgium

Claire is one of the sexual and reproductive health advisors with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Belgium. Her role also includes technical support to sexual violence care.

A UK midwife since 2011 with experience & passion for women’s equality and rights. She completed her adult nursing education at Leeds University (2007) and her midwifery education at St. George’s Hospital in London.

From there, Claire worked on assignment with MSF in DRC (2015) and South Sudan (2016 and 2017), with the emergency pool in Haiti (2016) and Sierra Leone (2019). In 2016 and 2019 she worked on strengthening midwifery education in Sylhet, Bangladesh and in Kapoeta, South Sudan with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) UK. 

Claire is passionate about engaging communities to understand how best to tailor services and access to sexual violence care. More recently she has been supporting projects in the OCB portfolio to implement community-based care approaches towards sexual violence in South Sudan, Chad and Sudan.

She holds a masters in Reproductive and Sexual Health Research from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (2018).