2025 UHC Day Champion
Levy Mkandawire
Programme Manager for Amref Health Africa, Zambia
Browse other champions
- Countries driving UHC progress
- Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite, Founder and President of UNITE - Parliamentarian’s Network for Global Health
- Dr. Viroj Tangcharoensathien, Vice Chair and Senior Advisor, International Health Policy Program Foundation, Thailand
- Solange Mbaye, Regional Programme Manager for Amref Health Africa, Senegal
- Levy Mkandawire, Programme Manager for Amref Health Africa, Zambia
- Concepta Kwaleyela, President of the Midwives Association of Zambia
- Professor Anne Beatrice Kihara, Former President of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Kenya
- Hester Mkwinda Nyasulu, Country Manager for Amref, Malawi
- Habibou Ouedraogo, Health Economist, Ministry of Health, Burkina Faso
- Hon. Hyun-Young Shin, Congresswoman, 21st National Assembly of Republic of Korea
On UHC Day, we must remember that universal health coverage is impossible without adolescents. Ensuring their access to health and rights and engaging key decision-makers through strong advocacy, is essential for a just and healthy Zambia.
As PMNCH’s implementing partner coordinator for the CAAP initiative, Levy plays a pivotal role in uniting civil society, healthcare professionals, youth advocates, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) experts and legal partners around shared national advocacy goals to improve the health outcomes of vulnerable and marginalized groups. Under his leadership, the CAAP coalition has strengthened engagement with parliamentarians to advance legislative and policy reforms that prioritize adolescent-friendly reproductive health services and address teenage pregnancy and child marriage, two of Zambia’s most pressing UHC challenges, through realising their sexual and reproductive health and rights and scaling up selfcare for health.
Levy has championed the use of community development funds to increase local investment in SRHR, while also demanding stronger accountability and transparency mechanisms for how SRHR resources are allocated and spent. His advocacy and convening efforts have brought finance and health ministry representatives into direct dialogue with MPs, helping institutionalize public oversight and political commitment to domestic resource mobilization for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health, a key step forward to achieve UHC.
Through his coordination of awareness-raising activities for Amref Health Africa in Zambia, Levy works closely with health ministry officials, traditional and religious leaders, local authorities and youth representatives to surface real community experiences. He has seen firsthand how adolescent girls face deep social and financial barriers, especially limited access to SRHR services, stigma, harmful norms and the inability to afford care or transport, all of which restrict their freedom to pursue education, health, and a fulfilling community life. Levy emphasizes that these lived experiences must shape advocacy and policy, because numbers alone cannot capture the daily realities that prevent girls and young women from accessing care. His work ensures that these voices, especially those of adolescents and youth, inform CAAP strategies, influence national discussions, and keep human dignity at the center of UHC reforms in Zambia.
