[1] Mpanju-Shumbusho is a co-founder, board member, and volunteer for the not-for-profit organization Adventures in Health, Education, and Agricultural Development (AHEAD Inc.), which was founded in 1981 to provide hands-on, people-to-people assistance to underserved communities in Africa and inner-city United States.
[3] [citation needed] Winifrida Kokwenda Mpanju was born near Bukoba, in Maruku village, Kagera Region in northwest Tanzania on the shores of Lake Victoria.
As a recognition of Mpanju-Shumbusho's leadership qualities, in 1981 she was awarded the Hubert H. Humphrey North-South Fellowship for graduate study at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.
In the mid-1990s she was an international clinical monitor of the open randomized trial of artemether against quinine in the treatment of cerebral malaria in African children, which was conducted in Tanzania, Malawi, and Nigeria.
Results from the study contributed significantly towards the WHO policy change to Artemisinin Combination Therapy as first-line treatment for malaria in endemic countries.
[citation needed] Mpanju-Shumbusho had many leadership roles within WHO since joining the UN Agency in 1999 as Director of the HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections Initiative, later renamed HIV/AIDS Department, the position she held until 2003.
[4] As WHO Assistant Director General, Mpanju-Shumbusho steered WHO's work in prevention, control, impact-mitigation, country support and global partnerships to combat the diseases under her purview and contributed significantly to the attainment of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) #6 and related MDGs.
[4][5] As Board Chair, she reinvigorated the Partnership and ensured it was on the forefront of global efforts to mobilise the necessary political will and resources to renew the fight to end malaria for good.
She is the co-chair of the Lancet Commission on Malaria Eradication and has authored numerous publications advocating for initiatives to end new malarial infections.
[6][7] After completing her three-year term in 2019, Mpanju-Shumbusho passed the role onto her successor, Prof. Maha Taysir Barakat, former director-general of Health Authority Abu Dhabi.