Ambrose Wasunna was head of the department of surgery at the University of Nairobi and director of the programme on health technologies at the World Health Organization (WHO). He was born on 4 August 1938 in the village of Nyahera, Nyzana province, Kenya and attended Maseno High School and then Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, qualifying in 1965 with the medical ethics and best finalist prizes. In 1970, he gained his FRCS, winning the Hallet prize medal. He returned to Kenya, to take over as chairman of the University of Nairobi's department of surgery, the first African Kenyan to hold this post. Here he established a WHO research centre and undertook his own research in gastroenterology. He went on to become dean of the faculty of medicine. In 1986, he left Nairobi to join WHO in Geneva. In 1987, he was an active member of the Global Blood Safety Initiative, a collaboration between WHO's global programme on AIDS, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the World Federation of Hemophilia and the International Society of Blood Transfusion. He later became director of the programme on health technologies. While at WHO, he wrote or contributed to several books and reports, including *General surgery at the district hospital* (Geneva, World Health Organization, 1988), and wrote several key papers, including 'Surgical manpower in Africa' (*Bull Am Coll Surg* 1987 Jun;72[6]:18-9) and 'Technology for health in the future' (*World Health Stat Q.* 1998;51[1]:33-43). He gave many guest lectures around the world. He retired to Kenya, where he rejoined the department of surgery and realised his dream of building a district hospital in Samburu. He was a deeply devoted Christian; he gained a BA in theology in 1993 and at the time of his death was a church leader. Ambrose Wasunna died at the age of 71 and was survived by his widow Marigold and their four children. A Professor Ambrose Wasunna oration has been established in his honour by the Surgical Society of Kenya.