Three Pakistanis win Gates Foundation's family planning leadership award

The 120 Under 40 highlights achievements of the next generation of family planning and reproductive health leaders

Three Pakistani young leaders are among the more than 100 winners of this year’s ‘120 Under 40: The New Generation of Family Planning Leaders’ awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health.

JUST IN! This year's @120Under40 winners work all over the world to advance #FP & SRHR. Check them out! https://t.co/appha1g2oy

— FP2030 (@FP2030Global) September 12, 2017

The 120 Under 40 is a forum meant to recognise and highlight the achievements of the next generation of family planning and reproductive health leaders worldwide. According to a press release issued on Tuesday, this year’s 40 winners are advocates, researchers, service providers, epidemiologists, medical doctors, program officers, communications/media professionals, and founders of NGOs and non-profits.



The winners from Pakistan announced this year include Laraib Abid, the founder of Mashal, a non-profit that focuses on women’s health. Abid has won several leaderships awards, the most recent was in April, Emerging Young Women Leader awarded by the Institute of Peace and Diplomatic Studies.

Others winners are Mansoor Qaisar, a senior information officer at the Population Council, an Islamabad-based research group, and Joshua Dilawar, a project officer at non-profit Samaj Development Foundation.

The winners worldwide were chosen through public online voting, scoring by a jury of experts and leaders in family planning, and the project secretariat. They each will receive $1,000 from the Gates Institute to continue their work in family planning.