Ray Chambers and Awa Coll-Seck with the UN Secretary General and his wife at the awards dinner. Photo: RBM/Trey Watkins.

UN Special Envoy for Malaria, Ray Chambers, and Executive Director of the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership, Professor Awa Coll-Seck, were awarded this year’s prestigious UNCA Citizen of the Year award. The awards were given in recognition of their respective leadership and commitment to the fight against malaria.

The awards were presented at the 16th United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) Awards Dinner in New York last Wednesday evening. The evening paid tribute to outstanding personalities who have contributed to humanitarian efforts around the world in the past year – focusing this year on malaria – along with excellence in media coverage of UN activities.

Both recipients were present to receive their awards from the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. During his speech, The UN Secretary-General praised both Mr Chambers and Professor Coll-Seck for their significant contributions to global malaria control efforts. Under their leadership efforts to prevent diagnose and treat malaria have increased considerably, particularly in Africa, and deaths from this preventable and treatable disease have fallen by 26% over the last decade.

Addressing the more than 500 journalists, diplomats, and representatives from the public and private sectors, civil society and foundations, Chambers and Coll-Seck accepted their awards with each highlighting the importance of partnership in their speeches: acknowledging the leadership of the Secretary-General and the support of the media for placing malaria on the global health agenda and for accelerating progress toward a malaria-free world.

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