Keizo Takemi

Keizo Takemi

Member, Japanese House of Councillors; Senior Fellow, Japan Center for International Exchange; former Japanese Vice Minister for Health, Labour and Welfare, Tokyo

Keizo Takemi is a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Member of the House of Councillors. Mr. Takemi has been involved in various global initiatives including the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health, Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA), WHO expert working group on R&D Financing, and the international organizing committee of the Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC). He has also been serving as the chair of the parliamentary caucus on Stop TB Partnership and the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD). In 2016, he was appointed to the UN High Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth, and in 2018, to the UHC Financing Advisory Committee for the G20 2019. He has served as Senior Vice Minister for Health, Labour and Welfare, and State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, where he led the initiative to establish the UN Trust Fund for Human Security. Within the LDP, he is Chairperson of the Special Committee on Global Health Strategy of the LDP Policy Research Council, Advisor of Headquarters for Pneumonia Associated with Novel Coronavirus, and Chairperson of Subcommittee on Governance for Infectious Diseases. In recognition of his contributions to the field over the past decade, he was appointed WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in July 2019.He has been a senior fellow with the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE), since 2007, where is the chair of the Executive Committee of the Global Health and Human Security Program. Professor Takemi is a visiting professor at a number of universities around Japan, and is the co-author of Global Action for Health System Strengthening: Policy Recommendations to the G8 (2009), and has contributed numerous articles in English and Japanese to journals such as The LancetAsia-Pacific Review, and Gaiko [Diplomacy].