About the Commission

The Lancet Commission on Peaceful Societies through Health Equity and Gender Equality was launched by The Lancet and the Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation (SIGHT) in 2019. It is an independent and interdisciplinary initiative of 20 Commissioners and other collaborators, originally set up to explore the untapped intersections between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 for health and well-being, SDG 5 on gender equality, and SDG 16 for peace, justice, and strong institutions.

In the context of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, the Commission recognised that the SDGs are interdependent. Yet in research, policy, and practice, these goals are often treated in isolation, perhaps missing opportunities to identify synergistic relationships between the various SDGs. The Commission aims to break down these siloes by analysing the relationships among three of these SDGs - 3, 5, and 16 - specifically looking at if, and how, improved health equity and gender equality can contribute to more peaceful societies.

To foster global, interdisciplinary, and forward-looking work, The Lancet and SIGHT brought together Commissioners representing a wide range of disciplinary and professional backgrounds, geographic regions, and career stages.

The Commission is chaired by Tarja Halonen, the former President of Finland, and includes medical doctors, legal scholars and policymakers, as well as academics. It also collaborates with over 40 researchers worldwide, including early career researchers and leading universities and institutions.

The Commission is supported by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in Finland, and Canada’s International Development Research Centre.

Find out more about the Commission's work

Read their report

Meet the Commissioners and Writing Team

 Institutional affiliation is listed for identification purposes only.

Tarja Halonen
Commission Chair

Former President of Finland; UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation, Member; Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Member of the Leadership Council; UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Land Ambassador

Zulfiqar A. Bhutta
Commission Co-Chair

Founding Director of the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health & The Institute for Global Health and Development, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan; Co-Director, SickKids Centre for Global Child Health, Toronto, ON, Canada; Professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences & Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Peter Friberg
Commission Co-Chair

Professor, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; Former Director, Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation (SIGHT), Stockholm, Sweden

Catherine Kyobutungi
Commission Co-Chair

Executive Director, African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, Kenya

Valerie Percival
Lead Researcher and Writer

Associate Professor, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada; Fellow, The Wilson Center, Washington DC, USA

Carolyn Chisadza
Writing Team Member

Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

Sara Fewer
Writing Team Member

Program Manager, Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; Former Secretariat Manager, Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation (SIGHT), Stockholm, Sweden

Ben Oppenheim
Writing Team Member

Senior Director, Ginkgo Bioworks, Boston, MA, USA; Fellow (non-resident), New York University Center on International Cooperation, New York, NY, USA

Dane Rowlands
Writing Team Member, Statistical Analyses

Professor, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Oskar Timo Thoms
Writing Team Member, Statistical Analyses

Researcher, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, Mississauga, ON, Canada

Gavin Yamey
Writing Team Member

Director, Center for Policy Impact in Global Health and Professor of Global Health and Public Policy, Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

Sara Causevic
Next Generation Commissioner

Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden; Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation (SIGHT), Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Senait Fisseha
Commissioner

Adjunct Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Siri Gloppen
Commissioner

Professor of Government, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; Director of LawTransform, the CMI-UiB Centre on Law & Social Transformation, Bergen, Norway

Debarati Guha-Sapir
Commissioner

Senior Research Fellow, Johns Hopkins Centre for Humanitarian Health, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; Institute of Health and Society, UC Louvain, Brussels, Belgium

Steven J. Hoffman
Commissioner

Director, Global Strategy Lab, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.

Ana Langer
Commissioner

Professor of the Practice of Public Health, Emerita, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

Minna Lyytikäinen
Next Generation Commissioner

Doctoral Student, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Ole Petter Ottersen
Commissioner

Professor, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Former President, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Geeta Rao Gupta
Commissioner

Senior Fellow, United Nations Foundation, Washington, DC, USA; Senior Advisor, Co-Impact

Sigrún Rawet
Commissioner

Deputy Director-General, Head of Department for Multilateral Development Banks, Sustainability and Climate, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Stockholm, Sweden

Alexa Salikova
Commissioner

Independent Researcher, Moscow, Russia