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Trailblazers with Garry: a conversation with John Gyapong
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“Trailblazers with Garry" is a series from Global Health Matters, where host Garry Aslanyan sits down with trailblazers — thinkers, leaders, and influencers shaping the future of global health — for short face-to-face conversations, available in both audio and video formats. It’s a chance to get to know the people behind the work and hear their perspectives on the current global health landscape.
For this episode, Garry visited Professor John Gyapong at the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) in Accra, Ghana. Since taking up the role of Secretary General of ARUA in 2024, John has been passionately leading efforts to strengthen Pan-African research collaborations. Early in his career, and at a time when global attention was fixed on malaria, John chose instead to focus on neglected tropical diseases. Today, as a leader and educator, he remains deeply committed to Africans developing solutions for Africa and nurturing the next generation of research scientists.
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Welcome to Trailblazers with Gary, a serious but Global Health Matters podcast. I'm your host, Gary Aslan. In this series, I sit down with Trailblazers in Global Health for short face-to-face conversations which you can listen to in audio or watch the video. It's a chance to get to know the person behind the work, hear their stories, and gain their perspectives on current global health landscape. Join me as we explore the people, places, and ideas driving global health forward. Let's get started. For this episode, I had the pleasure of visiting Professor John Jiapong at the offices of African Research Universities Alliance AROA in Accra, Ghana. Since taking up the role of Secretary General of AROA in 2024, John has been passionately leading efforts to strengthen Pan-African research collaboration. In our conversation, he reflects on his career journey and the pivotal influence of his father in shaping his desire to pursue a career in health. Early in his career and at a time when global attention was fixed on malaria, John chose instead to focus on neglected tropical diseases, an entry point that set him firmly on the path of health research. Today, as a leader and educator, he remains deeply committed to Africans developing solutions for Africa and nurturing the next generation of research scientists. I hope you enjoy this conversation. Hello and welcome to another episode of Trailblazers with Gary. I'm here at the University of Ghana in Accra, and I am with the Secretary General of an organization called Arua, which is the African Research Universities Alliance. And we'll learn more about that. But uh first of all, introducing Professor Johnny Jiapong, who is the Secretary General. So thanks, uh Johnny, for having me and for brewing this coffee. So uh great to uh be here in your office.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much, uh Gary, and uh you're very welcome to Accra and to the Aruba office.
SPEAKER_02Great. So let's get started, Johnny. Maybe we can start by you telling me a little bit what's in your upbringing that really made you choose a career in research.
SPEAKER_01That's a tough one. I'm not too sure whether there was something particular that made me decide to get into research, but probably to get into the health sciences rather. And then when I got into health sciences, research became an opportunity. My father um had a challenge in going to school. Uh he didn't have anybody to take him to school beyond primary school. Right. Uh and uh he was very zealous, he wanted to be uh uh a health practitioner. So he got himself into the army, and then there was an opportunity for him to study nurse, and so he did nursing, okay. So he did nursing in the army, okay. Then he upgraded himself to become what we call medical assistants or physician assistants these days. Uh-huh. So uh we used to talk about that at home, and uh I thought that was interesting, so maybe I could become a doctor. So that was in the beginning how I got myself into the health sciences. So I recall when I was even in sixth form, his friends were all referring to me as a doctor. Uh so that was a lot of pressure, you know. Uh, when you're in high school and your your parents' friends begin to refer to you as a doctor, it is very, very tough. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Before you do your A levels. I understand. Okay. Yes. And then you got into research later.
SPEAKER_01Then I got into medical school, and then I decided to uh take a rural posting. You know, in Ghana, when you finish medical school, you do your rotations. So I did my four major rotations in Kumasi, where I trained. That is in pediatrics, in obstetricular gynecology, and I did medicine, and then I did surgery. And then you have opportunity to go to a rural district. So I decided to go to Navrongo. So I ended up in Navrongo as uh a medical officer helping with the uh vitamin A supplementation trials at that time, uh, which were run by the London School of Hygiene and Topro Medicine. So actually, on that study, I was the I was a study pediatrician because there were no pediatricians in that area. I was the most uh highly trained doctor in the field of pediatrics in that in that area. So I became the study pediatrician. So it was being in that study that I began to see uh the relevance of health research. Then I decided to make a career in health research.
SPEAKER_02You have a lot of accomplishments, uh Johnny. Uh and of course uh that's very good. But who is Johnny Giapong? And of course, you are John Giapong.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm John, but uh as you know, when you get into high schools in Ghana, uh-huh, uh people tend to choose names that are trendy. So everybody started calling me Johnny, and uh that was it. So it got to a point where when I hear John, I think my father is calling me. Okay. Because everybody who knows me calls me Johnny.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah. Right. And who is Johnny Gio Party behind the scenes and really what do you care about most?
SPEAKER_01Uh I'm a very uh simple man, I think, who uh enjoys doing my uh work in health research and particularly trying to impact uh patients who have neglected diseases. Um as you would know, I decided to build a career in the neglected tropical disease area. I studied epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and there was opportunity for me to get into malaria, which everybody was doing at that time.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Uh but I, in my uh seven years of working in Navrongo, I saw so many people with all these huge legs and the social uh impact of this disease kind of which is lymphatic fularis. Lymphatic fluorasis called elephantasis. Elephantis, yes. I decided that uh if there was the opportunity to build a career in in that field, then I would then I would do that so that I could hopefully impact uh these populations were neglected. I mean the populations themselves are neglected. So yeah, these days we talk about neglected diseases, but I think it's the populations that are really, really uh neglected. And I was privileged or lucky to get a fellowship uh, first of all, from the British Council uh to go and study a master's in in public health in the London School. Then later on, uh WHOTDR offered me a fellowship to study a PhD in epidemiology. So I decided to focus on that and uh achieve my goals in trying to impact those societies.
SPEAKER_02So now thinking of that, those involved in global health, um, of if you were to choose one or two kind of callings or characteristics of those involved, what would be the one that stands out for you most?
SPEAKER_01I think for me, uh well, many people say I've been successful, but at the time I was charging that course, it was not fashionable to work in lymphatic fluorescent. I hear you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Not at all, it was not fashionable. Uh, but I wanted to make an impact in order to affect the society. Why were all these people neglected? So it was many, many, many years along the line that um this term neglected tropical diseases was coined. Uh, I remember very well in the meeting in Germany, in Berlin, where the then uh Deputy Director General of uh WHO Asam Wamba and his team went and people decided that we could make an impact uh because all the trials that had been done showed that uh with uh very simple treatment we could potentially interrupt transmission. Then the the big pharma came in to support. So when GSK and Merck came in to support the program implementation, and then we got a WHO World of Assembly resolution. I mean there were many constellation factors, and then all of a sudden, my friend David Molyneux said the hawks were gathering because now there was money to do good work for neglected tropical diseases. But at the time that we're doing all the basic work to get this work going, right, it wasn't attractive at all. Very, very little funding. Uh so for me, I think it's more of dedication to the cause, wanting to make an impact, seeing that you want to affect society positively. Uh that has been my my main goal. And uh if through that you become successful, then so be it.
SPEAKER_02That's a good uh that's a good um uh way to put it. Um of course we sometimes forget how we got here. Yes, and looking back, that was a good reflection. You've already said that you were able to combine all of this of different kinds of roles you had, you health worker and then researcher, and then educator. Why was it so important for you to have all of these different trends uh to come together?
SPEAKER_01I think for me it was uh things happening at the right time. None of these things were planned. My PhD was in epidemiology on lymphatic fluoriasis. So uh around the time I finish my PhD and I come back home, there is a World Health Assembly resolution to eliminate lymphatic fluorescence. So the minister and all the big people in the ministry say, Well, uh, you have done the PhD, you are the program manager. I said, sorry, I'm not the program manager, I'm a research scientist. They said, No, you have to run the program and demonstrate success. So it has an opportunity for me to demonstrate success. And through that, I became the director of research within the Ghana Health Service. Okay, you know, and uh when you rise to become the director of research in the Ghana Health Service, the next point of call is to become the director general of the health service. And that, in my opinion, is more of a political thing. And I didn't want to get there. So I decided to get into full-time academia because at that time I was doing part-time teaching here at the School of Public Health. I was teaching epidemiology and disease control here in the University of Ghana. So after about eight years of being the director of research and development, I decided let me move on. Then I came in here, and then there was an opportunity. The university decided that we wanted to focus on research. So they decided to create a second pro-vice-chancellor position. In other jurisdictions, they refer to as deputy vice chancellor, so that we could focus on that. And I got many calls to apply for the position because they thought my background fitted the job. I applied and I got it. So then I got into full-time academia, teaching, researching, managing research, and helping to ensure that the University of Ghana's rankings were going up and up and up. So that was that was how come I got into uh full-time academia. And then uh there's a part of my life that many people do not know. Uh when when the position of vice chancellor for University of Ghana became available, after five years of being deputy vice chancellor, I applied and I didn't get it. Okay. You know, many people see success, success, but I applied and I didn't get it. Uh-huh. Yeah. So, but then there was another university that was dedicated to health and allied sciences. And they were also looking for a vice-chancellor. So I was headhunted to become the vice-chancellor of the University of Health and Allied Sciences. Right. That's also in Ghana. That's also in Ghana. Right, right, right. So uh there I was able to uh impact, it was a very young university to be able to grow the university to its current status. So, yes, there is success, but there is a story that is never told that I didn't succeed in becoming the vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's still who knows who didn't succeed in what, right? Who's lost that what?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So I think in in that area, uh things went uh quite well, but very challenging, extremely challenging circumstances. Setting up a university. Actually, I was not the very first vice-chancellor, I was the second vice-chancellor after uh Professor Fred Binker, whom many of the TDR folks know. Right, right. He was the foundation vice chancellor. He was there for four years, and then I succeeded him for six years. It was very difficult, Terry. But we've managed to put the university on a very strong footing, and it's the place of choice for many, many, many, many Ghanaians who want to study medicine, pharmacy, public health, everything.
SPEAKER_02So tell me a bit more about the higher education and what are the challenges and opportunities. I mean, obviously, you have only experience in a few places, but you probably know beyond Ghana. Any any insight into that?
SPEAKER_01Well, the higher education landscape in Africa in particular is uh a very interesting one. There are many opportunities and challenges as well. Uh, the major challenge has been financing. Many uh governments, apart from maybe South Africa and a few other places, do not fund their higher education uh very well, especially uh funding of research. It's almost non-existent. So uh many vice-chancellors in Africa have to depend on very, very meager uh fees that students pay because government will not allow you to charge realistic fees, you know. I mean, you want to go to medical school in the US or anywhere, you will be paying at least $40,000 a year or thereabout. But if you are in Ghana or probably anywhere in Africa and you want to go into medical school, your government will not allow you to charge more than $1,000. So, how do you manage uh that university? How do you manage the training program? It is a very difficult terrain. So, what we've done in the past has been to try and get uh quite a lot of research money so that with some of the overheads from research, you can support the teaching of uh your students as well. And uh but in these days where there is also uh drying up of the research money, it's becoming extremely very, very difficult. Um, there are opportunities, as I said. Uh the opportunities are that uh there are very bright minds here whom you can engage to do almost everything. I mean, sometimes I get amazed that some of my students, some of the PhD people, I mean students that I I supervise. I mean, the their level of thinking is just super. You know, so the talent is there. We need to harness that talent. And I believe if we're able to do so, Africa will be a very, very excellent place to live in.
SPEAKER_02So how do we or how do you convince governments to invest more in science, research, and higher education? Um, is there a way, or I have been thinking about this? Have you uh given it a bit of a thought?
SPEAKER_01Yes, we have. I mean, and I wouldn't by any means suggest that I'm the first person to start thinking about it. There's been many uh suggestions. Uh you know, the interesting thing is that our governments are very quick to sign on the dotted line on all these uh communique that are issued all over the place. Almost all governments in Africa have committed to commit at least uh 1% of their GDP to research.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01But by my last check, only South Africa was doing about 0.67 percent, which is less than 1%. Not even one. No, no, but the target is 1%. Right. But 0.67, they are getting close. But if you look at the African other African countries, they are nowhere near that. Nowhere near that. So the the the void is so huge. Ghana, for instance, we managed to get through the processes, and now a national research fund has been established. Uh the government, the last time I heard I decided to put 50 million CDs into that national research fund uh to begin its uh operations. This is nowhere near uh 1% of GDP. So um it is a good start, but we have a very long way to go. We need a lot of advocacy. Uh the advocacy should be targeted at the highest level for them to see the need. You know, when when you talk to many of our leaders, they the rhetoric is, oh, we don't have the money. Yes, we don't have the money. That's why we didn't say put $100 billion. We say put 1% of your GDP. So, whatever it is that you have, commit a certain proportion to research and the development of science. And this is where we will begin to see the good things happening on our continent. So advocacy, advocacy, advocacy for me is a key thing. And uh the governments that are responding are demonstrating that uh there is something good to be had that comes out of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So as higher education is facing this new challenge or question of AI and how it's going to impact higher education and research. What are your thoughts on that, uh, John?
SPEAKER_01Um, first of all, AI is here to stay. Um we I recall um when when I in my final year as vice chancellor, that was three years ago, uh there were lots of concern raised about the quality of not the quality of the submission, the fact that submissions or fees were were being plagiarized. So um we had to put in extra effort to to check on all these submissions. Today, if you want to uh write an On neglected tropical diseases. All you need to do is to type it into Google and it will generate a very interesting outline for you with almost all the areas of importance, except that if you have the eye of NTDs, you see that certain things are not matching properly. So if the student is smart, then he will try to ensure that things are talking to each other within all what has been presented. But those who are not very smart just spew what has been generated and presented. And that has been one of the major concerns of academia. That what the student has presented, does he really own it? Has he really thought through it? Has he really analyzed? Yes, AI is here with you. AI can help you, but do you really own what thoughts it is that you are presenting? And should you be given a master's degree or a PhD based on this? We haven't solved that problem yet. At least for many of us here, we haven't solved that problem yet. But we need to confront it because it is out there. Normally, when we talk about AI, people think it's just Chat GPT and things like that. No, no, that's not it. It's actually uh Arua's Bienal conference this year is focusing on AI. Oh, yeah. Yes, we are focusing on AI in the higher education landscape. And we are hoping to address many of these issues uh in October. Incidentally, I've been invited also to go and speak at the uh Royal Society of Procommerce and Hygiene Conference in September, actually next week, uh, which is also focusing on artificial intelligence. So, artificial intelligence is here with us. We can make very good use of it. Clearly, it's an issue that we need to confront. We cannot run away from. It's very important. There are positives, but we need to ensure that the negatives are dealt with. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you mentioned the uh conference of Harua. Uh, can you uh tell me a bit more um what made you very passionate about taking this current position to be uh the secretary general of this organization and uh be leading this uh group of universities?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so uh again it's another uh thing that just came by. I when I finished my uh tenure as vice-chancellor, I took a sabbatical leave and I was at Georgetown University in Washington uh for a year. And uh during that period, I I saw an advert that I was looking for a new Secretary General, and the person should have been a former vice-chancellor, understands research and how to manage. So basically, the all the things that were listed in there were the things that I had been doing. Uh so I said, well, maybe this is something that I could try my hands on.
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_01Because after my one year sabbatical leave in Washington, I was going to go back and help with uh graduate training at the University of Health and Allied Sciences. Uh so I thought, well, give it a shot. And as they say, the rest is history. So I applied, I went through uh different interview uh panels as is usually done for these positions and that. And Arua is now focusing on what? So Arua is uh an alliance of 23 leading universities in Africa. Um we have currently 20 uh permanent members and three associate members. Uh Arua is basically uh trying to foster research collaboration amongst us. And uh the universities that are in Arua are among the top universities you would find in terms of rankings, or they check all the boxes when it comes to But they're all African, right? They're all African research universities. Yeah, right. Okay. So what we try to do, look for research. So first of all, we identify a problem that we think we can solve together. And then we have uh uh teams of people develop a proposal and try and address these challenges. So we work around what we call centers of excellence. So we've established 13 centers of excellence that are managed by our member universities. So we have a kind of hub and spoke model. So if uh University of Ghana is the the hub for center A, then you may have uh Cape Town and Macareri and uh uh Sheikh and Taddyop as the spokes for uh that center. And it's it's basically an issue of bringing our competences together, harnessing them to achieve more than uh we could do so on an individual basis. So that is the model that we started with. Right. Then along the line, we got an interest expressed from the Guild of the European Research Universities, which is also another 27 or so universities. I said, okay, we could work together. So then we formed what we call the clusters of research excellence. So we have if there is uh something on, say, vaccines that we want to work on together, and uh uh University of Bern is interested. So maybe University of Bern and University of Cape Town are the co-leads, and then we have three more uh institutions from the Guild of European Universities, and another three more from the African universities working together to address these issues. Our plan is to make sure that we develop and train the next generation of research scientists. So, through these centers, uh, we are putting together an innovative PhD program which will encompass the works of all the institutions and um make sure that students could register at their university, but the courses will be taught online and occasionally bringing them together. It's a very innovative thing that we're trying to do. Uh so it's a collaborative PhD training program. We are uh trying to finalize it and look for money to get that done. But beyond this, we have what we call the early career fellowships. So currently we're supported by Kenegy and the MasterCard Foundation, where about um 40 or so early career researchers. People who have finished their PhDs and they've just been appointed lecturers in the universities, are offered a six-month fellowship to go outside their university to one of the Arua universities and hone in on their skills, their research skills, come back and then begin their career. So, this is what we've been doing so far. We want to extend it to uh senior fellowships uh where people who are mid-career or just about finishing their career may also be given some fellowship to go and rethink uh what next. Because sometimes after teaching and all that for a very long time, people tend to get stale. Uh so we we need some revitalization. Okay. And we're trying to work with that. So basically, Arua is trying to do collaborative research, collaborative PhDs amongst ourselves here in Africa, because we think that the capacity and the resources exist here. Uh, of course, I mean we can always work with our northern partners on uh capacities that we do not have if there are some uh laboratory facilities that we do not have, then through our core initiatives, uh people can also uh have access to their laboratories.
SPEAKER_02Some things that the others don't have and you have. We can also have access, yeah. So this is um another question because this has been something in the research collaborations, not just health, but overall the power dynamics between partners, um, both within, let's say, certain countries or on the same continent, or between different um kind of um north-south and south-out. What are do you think are the um ingredients of successful collaboration and that should be kind of guided, uh, all of us, to make sure that these things are do not turn into power sort of uh dynamics? Yes.
SPEAKER_01Uh this is something that I'll seriously considered. And uh we've actually been uh supporting uh the Africa Charter. I'm not sure whether you know about the Africa Charter. It's a charter that is basically uh outlining what is good research collaboration and what it is that we should be doing. So the key, I mean, issues about trust, uh, equity, um uh co-creation and things like that. We are we are strongly supporting this charter together with other partners like the Association of African Universities and uh many other partners here on the African continent. So it is something that we think is very, very important to do because you know when you're doing collaboration, there must be mutual respect for each other. And uh when I see uh uh a research publication that has uh 10 authors, and the first five authors are from Europe, and the title of the paper is lymphatic flare as in Ghana. I cringe because for me that is no good partnership. Yeah, so um these are the things that we are trying to deal with, but you know, that kind of challenge, it's not just north-south. Sometimes, even on the African continent, we find that even amongst our 23 universities, there are some that we all know are uh up there, and uh we need to manage that space so that there is equal partnership. Uh it's not very easy to do, but it's not impossible when we apply our minds to it.
SPEAKER_02But you your role is perfectly suited for that, to kind of uh uh push for that.
SPEAKER_01So we are pushing very strongly on that. So Arua has signed onto the Africa Charter, and uh we are encouraging all our member universities also to sign onto the charter, which which is I'll share it with you. It's it's a very clear, uh elucidated uh principles of collaboration, which uh is the ideal that everybody must have.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. So just to maybe wrap up, last question. This year um obviously global health is going through some challenging times uh at various levels. So, what do you think uh are the kind of ingredients of or what kind of vision for global health those of us involved in global health need to come together collectively? What is your uh thinking about this?
SPEAKER_01I think the the challenges of global health that as I see them today. Um I don't know whether I should say it's self-inflicted, but let's face it, uh the posture, in my opinion, of uh the US uh has not been very favorable. Um yes, we know US is a big donor, um and uh we are very grateful to the US for its uh resources that it applies to global health. But you see, we live in a global village, and these days uh communicable diseases uh don't need passports to go across. So when you're supporting a research agenda on infectious diseases in Ghana or Cameroon or wherever, it is a good cause and it is a public good, and it protects all of us when one small island is not safe. All of us are not safe, and we know what happened during the COVID pandemic, what happened in in India, sorry, uh in uh in China, which spread within a very short time, and the world came to a standstill. So I think we should be very, very careful. My worry is the fact that it appears other western countries are beginning to follow suit in a very subtle way, where they are all beginning to look at their defense and internal security. It's very important. Your defense and internal security is very important, but I don't think it should be at the expense of international health and funding for international health at that. But I think the flip side is that those of us who live in this part of the world give it whatever tag, third world, developing countries or whatever. I think it's also about time we also sat down to begin to face the music, that we cannot continue to depend on the benevolence of other people. And we need to sit down and creatively think of how we can solve our own problems. So uh, yes, in as much as I'm not too happy with what has happened from that side, I think maybe it's also our time that we sat down to to look at what it is that we can do for ourselves. And uh I believe there is a lot that we can do for ourselves.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so on that note, thank you, Johnny, for this great conversation. And to our listeners, uh, I was speaking with Johnny Jiapong, the Secretary General of the Arua organization here in Accra, Ghana. Thank you for having me, Gary.
SPEAKER_01It's a pleasure to have you in Accra.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for joining me for this episode of Trailblazers with Gary, brought to you by the Global Health Matters Podcast. The audio and video versions of this episode are available wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to visit the Global Health Matters webpage for more information about my guests and this series.
