Obatunde Oladapo, from Nigeria, is a co-founder and Executive Director of PLAN Health Advocacy and Development Foundation (PLAN Foundation).
He has been largely instrumental to building up the organization from scratch as a support group of people living with HIV to a major player in health and development at community, national, regional and global levels.
He has actively contributed to the establishment and development of community, civil society and activists’ networks, coalitions and movements at national, regional and international levels.
Obatunde was/is
- founding member and Executive Steering Committee (ESC) member of the African Community Advisory Board (AfroCAB) and has sat on the ITPC World Community Advisory Board (World CAB) since 2008.
- founding member and National Coordinator (since 2013) of Treatment Action Movement (TAM), the Nigerian coalition of treatment activists which was established in 2003. TAM leads advocacy for Access to HIV/AIDS-related prevention, treatment and care services in terms of Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability, Affordability, and Accountability.
- co-founder and National Secretary of the first civil society network of organizations working on Tuberculosis and TB/HIV in Nigeria in 2010 which has risen to the status of a national network of over 400 registered member-organizations and undisputedly the largest national network of TB-focused NGOs in the world.
- a Community Representative on the Core Group of the Stop TB Partnership’s TB/HIV Working Group from 2007 to 2009.
- a member of the Global Coalition of Community TB Activists (GCTA)
He has experience working with people from diverse social status, cultural backgrounds, languages, skills and capacities. I place high premium on evidence-based advocacy and activism focusing on eliciting real-life, convincing and community-based information through consultation with, seeking input from, and learning from affected communities and populations in support of decision making and policy formulation on issues relevant to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care.
He has an impressive track record of working at community level on community engagement for raising demand for TB services, providing support for TB patients; facilitating linkage of communities to integrated AIDS, TB and Malaria services from inception of the Global Fund CSS in Nigeria.
He has also served on and led various research programs, surveys and field studies.
His work and contributions to provision of AIDS, TB and Malaria services are well documented in over 20 abstracts that he has authored or co-authored and have been accepted for publication and presentation in major international conferences and meetings on HIV/AIDS, TB and related issues since 2004.
He holds membership of reputable national, regional and global bodies working on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other health-related issues.