Our Team

Rafael Vilasanjuan is a journalist with a degree in Information Sciences from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). He is the director of Policy and Global Development of ISGlobal since March 2011. He was Deputy Director of the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) from 2006 to 2011.

He also worked for over 12 years with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), starting as Communication Director in 1995 and later as General Director of the Spanish section of MSF. In 1999, when the organization was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace, he was appointed General Secretary of MSF International until 2005. During this period, he worked in conflict areas such as Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan, West Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia.

As General Secretary of MSF, he was a founder member of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), which develops and delivers new drugs for diseases in developing countries. Rafael Vilasanjuan still collaborates with the DNDi.

He has also participated in observatory missions with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), monitoring electoral processes in the Middle East.

He is member of the Advisory Board of Democracia Abierta (Open Democracy) and member of the Advisory Committee of IFIT (Insitute for Integrated Transitions), among others. He was chair of the GAVI Civil Society Organizations Steering Committee from 2017 to 2019 and member of that committee from 2016 to 2017. In 2020 he became alternate Board Member representing the civil society organisations of GAVI. He is former president of Exit Foundation. 

He has a weekly opinion column on international affairs in El Periódico and contributes weekly as a political affairs analyst on the news programme on the leading radio station in Spain (Cadena SER) and he also contributes on the leading news programme on TV3, Catalonia’s autonomous television network.