The CSEM Advisory Group

Pauline Irungu is PATH’s Global Policy and Advocacy Advisor. She leads PATH’s advocacy for equitable access to quality maternal, newborn and child health. Previously, she served as the Advocacy and Policy Country Lead for Kenya.

She is a public health policy and advocacy leader with nearly two decades of experience engaging with governments in the African region advocating for stronger policies and investments in women and children’s health, and global health research and development. She has extensive experience leading advocacy ensuring that civil society is a driving voice behind government decision-making and policy actions. She has built strategic and collaborative relations with civil society in East Africa to influence policy and investment priorities for health in the region and provided thought partnership to the Kenyan government in policy making. She has collaborated with the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) to bring the voice of civil society into policies and initiatives for medicines regulation in Africa and continues to be a member of the Africa Medicines Regulatory Harmonization Partnership Platform.

Pauline has sat on various national technical working groups on reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH), and primary health care (PHC) convened by the Kenyan Ministry of Health. From 2019 to 2021, she served as a civil society representative to the Global Financing Facility for Women, Children and Adolescents (GFF) Investors Group. In this role, she participated in the GFF’s 2021 – 2025 strategy development core task team. She ensured that the role, contribution, and value add of civil society was included and highlighted in the new strategy. Currently, she is the global co-chair of the Accountability Working Group and a member of the NGOs Constituency Leadership Group of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH).

Pauline has a Bachelor of Science in information Sciences from Moi University in Kenya and a post graduate certificate in public health from the University of Roehampton in the UK.