New SMP Chair and Vice-Chairs appointed

24 January 2025

Professor Jeremy Bagg appointed new SMP Chair

Head of the University of Glasgow Dental School from 2005 to 2021, Jeremy Bagg OBE is the Scottish Lead for the MalDent Project, a partnership between Kamuzu University of Health Sciences and the University of Glasgow.

Funded by the Scottish Government, this project has established Malawi’s first Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree programme, and the country’s first home-trained dentists are expected to graduate early this year. Through collaboration with Malawi's Ministry of Health & Population, the MalDent Project has also developed a National Oral Health Policy which was launched in April 2022.

Emeritus Professor at the University of Glasgow, Jeremy is a former Director of Global Health for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College last year in recognition of his outstanding, collaborative work on the MalDent project.

Prof. Bagg commented:

"It is an immense privilege and honour to accept the role of Chair of the Scotland Malawi Partnership. My colleagues in Malawi and I have first-hand experience of the SMP’s core role of supporting dignified partnerships between friends and organisations in our respective countries, and our own work in oral health improvement has benefitted greatly. I know the same is true for many other collaborations. I look forward with excitement to working with fellow Board members and all in the Scotland-Malawi community to continue strengthening the respectful people-to-people partnerships that exemplify the work of the organisation."


Jeremy succeeds Prof Heather Cubie as Chair, Heather having successfully completed 9 years as an SMP Trustee and 5 years as Chair. We warmly welcome Jeremy into his new role, ratified by the SMP’s Board last night and look forward to his leadership in advancing the SMP’s mission of fostering meaningful, dignified and sustainable partnerships between Scotland and Malawi.

Prof Jeremy Bag Announcement

SMP Vice-Chairs

The Scotland Malawi Partnership's leadership structures have been further strengthened by the appointment of new Office-Bearers. The voluntary positions, ratified by the SMP's Board bring a range of expertise and experience in Scotland-Malawi links, including in the areas of governance, safeguarding and the protection of vulnerable groups, capacity-building and training, amplifying the voices of Malawians and storytelling, decolonial approaches and education, project co-design and delivery. With strong friendship-based, personal Scotland-Malawi links, the appointees are:

Senior Vice Chair: Susan Dalgety

Before visiting Malawi for the first time in 2005, Susan’s professional career was either in politics or journalism, sometimes both. For the last 20 years, Malawi has been the main focus of her work, and she has visited at least once a year, for work and increasingly to spend time with friends.
She worked on the first bi-lateral agreement between our two governments, and from 2007 has been a freelance governance adviser, working with Scottish NGO the Active Learning Centre and its Malawi partner, the Women’ Legal Resources Centre (WOLREC).

In recent years Susan has worked with councillors in Malawi on two capacity building programmes, sharing her insights gained as a councillor in Edinburgh for seven years.
In 2019 she and her husband lived in Malawi for six months, researching a book, The Spirit of Malawi which was published in February 2021. She also filed a weekly column Letter from Malawi for "The Scotsman". She still writes for "The Scotsman" every Saturday, on a range of topics.

Susan previously served as a board director for the Scotland Malawi Partnership for several years and is a trustee of 500 miles and the McConnell International Foundation.

Co-Vice Chair: Dr Yonah Matemba

Yonah is a co-founder of the Association of Malawians in Scotland and is Chair of the SMP's Further & Higher Education Forum. He is an SMP Trustee and was an SMP Board member a decade ago.

Yonah is a qualitative researcher in social sciences education at the University of the West of Scotland with particular expertise in Educational, Religious, Historical and Comparative research. His current work concentrates on decolonial and anti-racist approaches in education.

Co-Vice Chair: John Wyllie

John has been closely involved in the protection of vulnerable groups over the last 30+ years. As a police officer he has worked extensively on training and capacity building internationally. As Head of International Development and Innovation, he led Police Scotland’s Africa programme, with significant emphasis on Malawi. There he engaged with the Malawi Police, Social Services and Health Services, Governments and multiple agencies and NGOs on projects designed to protect the most vulnerable.

Since 2013 John has also been involved in significant international projects with 5Rights Foundation in protecting children and young people online including international standards IEEE SA - Children's Data Governance, delivering practical and effective training also with UNICEF in Bhutan.

John is currently Head of Safeguarding for the Scottish Episcopal Church and is Chair of the SMP's Safeguarding Committee, which he joined in 2020.

SMP Vice Chairs