A Sierra Leonean biostatistician, Osman Sankoh(photo) has been appointed Deputy Director of INDEPTH, an international NGO based in Accra, Ghana.
According to an INDEPTH statement, Dr. Sankoh will continue his work at the organization’s Secretariat in Accra as the Network’s Deputy Executive Director after his promotion to the position on 1st June 2006.
INDEPTH Network currently consists of 37 demographic surveillance system (DSS) sites which continuously evaluate populations and their health at the household level in 19 countries in Africa, Asia, Central America
and Oceania.
Professor Fred Binka, Executive Director of INDEPTH, said that appointing Dr. Sankoh was a confirmation of the confidence he and the Board have in Dr. Sankoh and a recognition of Dr. Sankoh’s invaluable contribution to the successful development of the Network over the last four years. "Osman is hardworking. He is full of initiatives; a great and dependable team member," said Professor Binka.
"Having worked as unofficial deputy for several years with Fred Binka, a name
associated internationally with good work, unflinching commitment to purpose and a strong will to deliver excellent products from a South-based organisation, I feel greatly humbled by this appointment and do accept the position with humility, as I am aware of the great challenge it brings along," said Dr. Sankoh. "I will continue to work effectively in our small team to provide the requisite support to the Executive Director and to the other important organs of the Network - the Board, the Scientific Advisory Committee, our revered Site Leaders and their great teams."
"Osman’s appointment as Deputy Executive Director is timely and well-deserved” said
Professor Stephen Tollman of the School of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, Chair of the INDEPTH Board of Trustees. "The Board is particularly pleased to endorse this appointment, and we keenly look forward to building on our already tried and tested relationship with Osman. He will, I know, lead with distinction as INDEPTH works to realize its great potential.”
Osman became the Communications and External Relations Manager of the INDEPTH Network in mid 2002 following the formal constitution of INDEPTH in February that year. Before that, he was a consultant to INDEPTH and worked closely with the Boston Consulting
Group to develop the first INDEPTH Strategic Plan 2002-2004. Dr. Sankoh was the lead editor of the Network’s first major publication which achieved exceptional publicity and international attention to INDEPTH - Population and Health in Developing Countries, published by IDRC, Canada in 2002.
Arnond Mishkin of Mishkins Associates in New York who was a Vice President of the Boston Consulting Group said: “Osman Sankoh has been one of the leaders in the initial success of INDEPTH. His promotion is both a tribute to him and his work
personally as well as a testimony to how INDEPTH has become a permanent institution that will provide invaluable information to public heath and medical authorities for the future.”
"I am delighted by Osman’s appointment and have no doubt that his competencies will contribute to taking the network to new heights. I wish him and his team the best as they enter a new phase in INDEPTH’s development and look forward to continued collaboration," commented Dr. Cheikh Mbacke, a former Vice President of the Rockefeller Foundation which was among the few funding agencies that took the risk to provide the first core funding to INDEPTH.
Dr. Nguyen T. K. Chuc, site leader of the Filabavi DSS site in Vietnam - a founding INDEPTH member site - expressed delight about Dr. Sankoh’s appointment and said she was strongly convinced that he would use his demonstrated competence to continue to make INDEPTH stronger.
Osman was born in 1962 in the little village of Warima in Northern Sierra Leone. He attended the Njala University College (now Njala University), University of Sierra Leone where he graduated in 1987 with a First Class Bachelor degree in
mathematics with distinctions in both teaching practice and education project. He was awarded the University of Sierra Leone Prize for Academic Excellence. After service to his country as a Research/Teaching Assistant in the Department of Mathematics at Njala University, he pursued further studies in Applied Statistics at the University of Dortmund in Germany where in 1996 - during his doctoral programme - he was awarded the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Prize for Academic Excellence and Exceptional Social Engagements by a Foreign Student; a prize which cut across all n ationa lities. At the University of Dortmund he worked as a research assistant in the Chair of Statistical Methods in Genetics and Ecology in the Department of Statistics and also in the Institute for Economic and Social Statistics.
Dr Sankoh is by training a biostatistician, epidemiologist, environmental researcher, and an excellent communicator. His research covers statistical methods in environmental and ecological research; demographic surveillance systems in the developing world; environmental impact assessment and management; and geographical information systems.
Osman worked for three years as a scientist in the Department of Tropical Hygiene and Public Health at the University of Heidelberg Medical School in Germany. During that time, he collaborated with the Nouna Health Research Centre in Burkina Faso and spent several
research periods in Nouna. He has also acted as a consultant on population and health issues to the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, and the University of Pennsylvania in the US.
Osman’s publications have appeared in a range of international journals. His work on epidemiology and biostatistics has been published in Tropical Medicine and International Health and the International Journal of Epidemiology. Papers on environmental impact assessment and management that he has authored or co-authored have appeared in the African Journal of Environmental Assessment and Management, the Journal of Environmental Management, and Environmental Impact Assessment Review. His work on creative
writing includes Hybrid Eyes - An African in Europe and Beautiful Colours both of which he first wrote and published in German.
Comments