The WABA Research Task Force is now being helmed by Amal Omer-Salim as Coordinator and Khalid Iqbal as Co-coordinator.

Amal Omer-Salim also serves as a Senior Technical Advisor to WABA. Amal is a nutritionist by profession and is based at the Dept of Women’s and Children’s Health at Uppsala University, Sweden. She has been involved in the education and research programs at Uppsala and has published two scientific articles which are described briefly below. Her main interests are in the field of infant and young child nutrition, the socioeconomic factors related to nutrition and more recently in the field of gender and nutrition. For many years, she has been working as a consultant to the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida. Amal has been working with WABA and its Core Partners in the ILO Campaign for Maternity protection for working women and is now working with WABA on coordinating the Health care practices area, amongst other things. The Logical Framework Approach and other results-oriented methodologies are of great interest to her as well as finding time to balance being a working mother of three children!

The two published articles which were part of her licentiate degree at Uppsala University are as follows:

1. Whom can I rely on? Mother’s approaches to support for feeding:
   an interview study in suburban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
   Omer-Salim A, Persson LÅ, Olsson P
   Midwifery. 2007 Jun;23(2):172-83. Epub 2006 Oct 17
2. How do health workers balance infant feeding and employment?
   Amal Omer-Salim, Pia Olsson
   African Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health,
   Vol. 2, Iss. 1, 18 Jan 2008, pp 46 - 52

Dr.Khalid Iqbal is the Co-coordinator WABA’s Research Task Force. He is basically a clinician, currently working as a Neonatologist in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Dubai hospital Dubai United Arab Emirates. He has extensive experience in management of child health and infant nutrition issues. He is a Lactation Consultant, BFHI assessor and BFHI trainer as well.

Dr. Khalid has been affiliated with many regional and international organisations and contribute significantly in promotional activities and advocacy campaigns. He is a member of Advisory Committee IBFAN Arab World, Executive Coordinator of Gulf Alliance of Breastfeeding Advocates (GABA), Code Coordinator UAE Lactation Consultants Association. He had been approaching many formula companies with strong letters based on scientific evidence and compelled them to stop unethical and unscientific claims. One of the letters was published in The Lancet under title “Unethical promotion of Lactose Free Formula” .

Dr.Khalid is the author of many scientific papers either published in international journals or circulted online and has written two books, “Our Children are at Risk” and “The Basics of Human Lactation”.

He is a well-known speaker and presented many topics at international platforms in USA, Germany, Australia and middle east countries.