Introducing the Digital Rights Advisory Council (DRAC)

Ali Feizzadeh currently heads the UNAIDS team on Strengthening Capacities and Dissemination, Data for Impact. He is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya and in the past 17 years has worked in South Africa, Papua New Guinea and Iran Country Offices as well as at the Regional Support Team for Middle East and North Africa, based in Cairo. Before joining UNAIDS, he worked with several UN agencies, research Institutes, the Ministry of Health, and Social Welfare Organization, all in Iran.

Daniel Orogo is the current Africa Regional Coordinator for Democracy Moves, a leading advocate for political inclusion and governance. In Kenya, he leads Civic Voices Initiative, a civic tech in Governance organisation promoting inclusive digital public participation and civic engagement.He has equally led a number of consultancy initiatives both at the national , sub national and community that cuts across thematic areas namely  sexual reproductive health Rights and access, Youth, Peace and mediation and media.

Notably, he also served as Youth Coordinator for the 2022 “Africa, My Home, My Future” campaign under the All Africa Conference of Churches, inspiring unity among African youth.

A founder of the Langata Youth Network in 2012 in Kibera, Daniel has championed community development and youth participation in the informal settlements of Kibera and beyond.

Daniel is a fellow at the NDI Political Parties Leadership Institute (PPLI) and the Future Elect East Africa Public Leadership Program

Emma Day is a British lawyer with 25 years’ experience working in human rights. Emma is a human rights lawyer, expert in human rights and technology, and co-founder of Tech Legality. Atlantic Council DFR Lab Nonresident Fellow, and Alumna at Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

Starting out as a social scientist, Emma spent two years working with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in Rwanda (1999-2001) where she was inspired to learn more about law and justice in the context of a society reconciling the after-effects of a genocide. Emma started her legal career in a community law centre in London bringing actions against the local authority on behalf of homeless young people. From there she moved to Canada where she qualified as a solicitor and barrister, training at a leading international law firm in British Columbia. She then moved to Kenya where she worked for three years as a freelance human rights lawyer for the Open Society Foundation, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and KELIN Kenya, carrying out socio-legal research related to access to justice for marginalised populations. From Kenya, Emma moved to Thailand for six years where she worked as a legal consultant most recently for the UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office, leading its work on child online protection. While at UNICEF, Emma led several research studies and convened multistakeholder fora in six countries across the Asia Pacific region, bringing together governments, civil society and technology companies to address children’s rights in relation to technology.

Inspired by the platform regulation aspects of child online protection, Emma took a sabbatical in 2019-2020 to attend UC Berkeley as a Fulbright Scholar to complete her second LLM, with a focus on law and technology. Emma then continued to consult for UNICEF on data governance for children before co-founding Tech Legality, co-authoring The Case for Better Governance of Children’s Data: A manifesto ; and on children’s rights and business for the technology sector, writing a Special Briefing for the UN Human Rights (OHCHR) B-Tech project. She has also consulted for the 5Rights Digital Futures Commission, providing a legal analysis of the governance of EdTech in schools, and for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on hate speech, disinformation and misinformation. Emma is a Non-resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab, and an alumna of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. She is also a member of the European Data Protection Board Support Pool of Experts, and part of the Privacy Expert Group for the Digital Public Goods Alliance.

Dr. Khine Su Win is a dedicated health professional and medical doctor with a strong commitment to global health, and human rights. Since 2012, she has focused on her work on advancing gender equality and advocating for the rights of marginalized communities across Asia, including Southeast, South, and East Asia. With expertise in program and financial management, strategic planning, participatory research, monitoring and evaluation, and capacity building, she works closely with  marginalized groups such as People Living with HIV (PLHIV), Women Living with HIV (WLHIV), LGBTIQ individuals, sex workers, People Who Use Drugs (PWUD), opium farmers, and ethnic minorities. Driven by a passion for social justice, Khine advocates for the well-being and rights of these communities, working to create a more inclusive and equitable society where every voice is heard and respected. Currently, she serves as the Strategic Development Director at ILGA Asia, where she leads efforts to advance the rights of LGBTIQA+ communities across the region.

Dr Manish Pant leads UNDP’s work on digital health through the Digital Health for Development Hub, as part of the Global HIV and Health Group.

Prior to this, he headed the Health & Governance unit at UNDP’s India office during 2015-2021 where he successfully led it’s work on implementing the electronic vaccine intelligence network (eVIN) system that digitizes national vaccine supply chain across all the public health facilities. He also led UNDP’s work on developing and implementing CoWIN – a digital platform that is central to COVID vaccine delivery and beneficiary registration across the India. He also led the work on governance and system strengthening in public sector for improved service delivery, particularly digital health with a focus on maternal & child health, HIV and non-communicable diseases along with developing scalable digital solutions on tribal welfare, social protection for the vulnerable population and transgender welfare.

Dr Pant is a medical doctor and public health professional holding an M.D. degree in Community Medicine from Delhi University with over 20 years experience of working in humanitarian and development sectors across South Asia, Pacific and Africa regions. He has worked for organizations like International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies and International Diabetes Federation where he developed and led public health programs in areas including immunization, maternal & child health, HIV, non-communicable diseases, public health in emergencies and disaster risk management.

A national of New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Paul served on the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and thereafter was appointed the first independent UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health.

He reported to the UN General Assembly and UN Human Rights Council, and presented some 30 reports on a wide range of health-rights issues, numerous countries, GlaxoSmithKline, the World Trade Organisation, World Bank, IMF, Guantanamo Bay, and the Israel-Lebanon conflict in 2006.

Between 2011 and 2013, he was senior human rights adviser to WHO Assistant Director-General Dr. Flavia Bustreo.

Paul was appointed New Zealand’s Chief Human Rights Commissioner between January 2019 and January 2024.

He has published extensively on human rights, including health-rights, and has been awarded two Honorary Doctorates in recognition of his scholarship.

Sharifa Sekalala is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work sits at the intersection of international law, public policy, and global health. Her research focuses on global health crises and the role of law in addressing inequalities, often through a human rights framework. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).

Currently, Sekalala leads and co-leads several funded projects, including as Principal Investigator on a Wellcome-funded study on health apps in Sub-Saharan Africa and an ESRC-funded project, Advancing Health Data Justice: A Comparative Study of Health-Related Data Governance in Canada, Germany, and the UK. She is also Co-Investigator on After the End: Lived Experiences and Aftermaths of Diseases, Disasters, and Drugs in Global Health.

In 2024, Sekalala and Ania Zbyszewska were awarded the Feminist Legal Prize for their work reimagining supply chains through a feminist lens, centering care in pandemic response as a key principle of Global Health law.

Steven is a formally trained biomedical and health informatics professional and a digital health practitioner with over 25 years practising experience and expertise. During this time, he has supported more than 20 Ministries of Health in Africa to develop digital health policies, strategies, and various standards and guidelines to support their digital transformation in health journeys. He has designed, developed and led teams comprising diverse professionals in implementing digital interventions, services and applications in health predominantly in Africa.

Steven runs a digital health engineering development firm, IntelliSOFT Consulting Limited based out of Nairobi which he founded in 2007. He is the Founder Secretary General of the Kenya Health Informatics Association, and the current President of HEalth INformatics in Africa. He is well renowned on the global level working closely with international organisations such within the UN family such as WHO, UNICEF, ITU, World Bank, UNDP and others and aid agencies such as USAID, GIZ, US-CDC as well as continental bodies such as AfricaCDC, East Africa Community, IGAD and others to provide thought leadership and technical assistance in global digital health. Steven has strong research interests in AI for health and actively contributes to initiatives such as the WHO SMART guidelines that are essential foundations for ethical and responsible implementation and use of AI in healthcare.

Umunyana Rugege is a human rights lawyer and the Head of Human Rights at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Umunyana leads the human rights work across UNAIDS, with a focus on reducing inequalities that drive HIV and removing harmful laws and policies that target people living with, at risk of or affected by HIV.

Umunyana was previously the Executive Director of SECTION27, a human rights organisation based in South Africa that seeks to achieve substantive equality and social justice.

She holds a BA in Environmental Studies (magna cum laude) from the State University of New York at Buffalo, a Master’s degree from Cornell University, and an LLB from the University of Cape Town. She has clerked at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Umunyana has played a leading role in several human rights cases and policy processes advancing the right to health and has been a lifelong human rights defender.