Dr. Atef El Shitany is the Head of Population & Family Planning Sector at Ministry of Health & Population of Egypt. He was the Head of the National Population Council (NPC) of Egypt (Jan. 2012–Aug. 2013).

He is currently responsible for the management of population, reproductive health services and family planning programs. He is supervising and providing technical support for more than 5,000 public outpatient clinics and about 300 technical supervisor teams who work nationwide and more than 10,000 outreach health promoters who are carrying out home visits for most targeted communities.

Dr. Shitany is a Medical Doctor with a Masters in Public Health. He has more than 30 years experience in population, reproductive health and development. Among the projects he managed in Egypt is the Egypt Population Project in collaboration with World Bank, Social Fund for Development and Civil society. He contributed in the design and implementation of the Health Sector Reform Project, under which the rehabilitation of Primary Health Care units took place using the family health approach under coverage of health insurance regime to provide a basic benefit package of primary health care services to the most disadvantaged groups. Dr. Shitany also played a very important role in the design and implementation of the Health Facilities Accreditation Program (Gold Star) and the Quality Improvement Program was the first of its kind in Egypt. Dr. Shitany gained his experience through working in the areas of planning, evaluation, system strengthening programs, community based health interventions, and communication for behavior change. In addition he contributed in designing manuals and training curricula, teaching, conducting operation researches.