Richard Dzikunu is a United Nations award-winning youth activist with a track record of influencing adolescent health policy, proven strategic communications, grassroots mobilization, and advocacy skills. In 2018, he received the first-ever Sustainable  Development Goals (SDGs) Action Campaign Award from the United Nations during the Global Festival of  Action for Sustainable Development in Bonn, Germany. The award recognized Richard’s work in influencing the Ghana Adolescent Health Policy and empowering women and girls in resource-poor settings and persons with disabilities to be meaningfully engaged in national dialogues on the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Richard brings over ten years of community, national, and international working experience in sexual and reproductive health rights, primary healthcare programming and advocacy, integration of digital technology and strategies for Universal Health Coverage advocacy, and implementation of projects related to youth-led governance, research, and accountability. He is passionate about working with funders, advocates, researchers, and implementers to systematically integrate meaningful youth participation and partnership practices in their ways of working. 

His professional portfolio includes working as a Programs Officer for Curious Minds in Ghana, as an Advocacy Associate, Primary Health Care Initiative with PAI in Washington DC (Global Health Corps Fellowship), Youth Officer for Transform Health Association based in Geneva, and currently, an Action Learning Groups Lead with the YIELD Hub, an adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health and rights (AYSRHR) initiative hosted by Rutgers International in the Netherlands.

Richard holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication and a Master of Arts degree in Development Communication from the Ghana Institute of Journalism. He also holds a joint Master of Arts degree in Digital Communication Leadership from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Paris Lodron University of Salzburg. He is currently based in Brussels (Belgium).

Term Expires: December 31, 2025