User:Healtheconomist

CV/Areas of Expertise
I keep this updated on my LinkedIn page. To view it click here.

My Activities by Country
All public information related to my work is displayed below, but if you are a Futures Group International employee you may view proprietary information related to these activities by Clicking Here. Almost all of my work falls under the scope of USAID's Health Policy Initiative Task Order 1.

Technical Team Leader, Poverty and Health Equity
Ensure that activities addressing poverty and health equity issues are adequately staffed and funded, appropriately described in the work plan, and are completed on time and on budget. Work with Technical Deputy Directors and Regional Managers to ensure that technical elements are appropriately reflected in country programs. Maintain expertise in my technical areas of poverty reduction, health equity enhancement, and strengthening of FP/RH services abroad. Ensure compliance with USAID and project technical guidance.

Make presentations and otherwise represent the project at public and professional functions at the request of the management team. Facilitate technical team communication, coordination, and strategic planning. Conduct and facilitate training on pertinent topics to share knowledge. Work with the other managers to build financial and program management skills in core activity managers. Oversee and coordinate work of Activity Managers in my technical areas.

Resources Required for Family Planning Support Functions
HPI is working to improve estimates of the resources needed to scale-up family planning programs globally and at the country level. We have recently collected information on service delivery costs in four countries and will encourage additional countries to collect similar information. However, a national family planning program also includes a variety of support functions, such as policy, logistics, and research. We are now collecting data to estimate these support costs to have a comprehensive understanding of the FP resources required.

Poverty and Health Equity Training Program
I have helped to design a two day training program for HPI and USAID staff that will increase their awareness and technical understanding of how to help the poorest segments of society attain equity in access to health services.

Futures Group Distinguished Speaker Series
My company invites a distinguished speaker each month to share his/her expertise with our employees. In March we invited Davidson Gwatkin of the World Bank, who is an expert in the field of Poverty and Health Equity.

Afghanistan
In February 2010 I created and delivered two workshops to train members of the Government of Afghanistan's Ministry of Population and Health on how to use the models our company has developed. This activity is part of the [COMPRI-A] Project.

Improving Access to Family Planning Services Among the Poor
I played a supporting role on this activity by tracking the activity budget under the direction of my manager Suneeta Sharma.

Improving Reproductive Health Resource Allocation at the Decentralized Level
I am the activity manager for this project, it was originally managed by Dayl Donaldson before she left HPI.

As mentioned above, if you are a Futures Group International employee then you can view documents related to this activity by clicking here

Madagascar
In January 2009 I became technical manager for all Futures Group work in Madagascar.

Family Planning and the National Vision in Madagascar
I provided activity management and technical oversight to finalize two brochures on Family Planning in Madagascar--one in English and one in French. The brochures required coordinating the input of three technical experts, four quality assurance specialists, a production design specialist, a contracts specialist, a French translator, a printing company in Madagascar, HPI managers, and USAID managers. This activity was completed in September 2009.

Costing a 1 percentage point increase in Contraceptive Prevalence
The Futures Institute's Eva Weissman manages this activity and I provided French/English translation support during the data collection trip in October 2008. During this trip we collected price information for various contraceptives and family planning services in Mali with the goal of understanding the price tag for expanding contraceptive prevalence in Mali by one percentage point.

I also edited the final reports for this activity which cover Kenya, Mali, Jordan, and Ethiopia. These reports are slated for publication in 2010.

For those of you who work at the Futures Group International you can click here to view the official description of this activity on the HPI workplan.

Nigeria
I am the activity manager for a cost-benefit analysis of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) expenditures on family planning. We are attempting to answer the question; “Do MDG funds flowing through NHIS achieve positive benefits that more than repay their costs?”. This information should help Nigerian policymakers determine whether to allocate more resources to NHIS family planning and maternal and child health programs.

The written report for this activity was finalized in January 2010. You may view it by clicking here.

IR 4 Public Private Collaboration
As of January 26th I began technical research to identify potential areas for public-private partnership to expand contraceptive prevalence. In March Margot Fahnstock (this activity's manager) and I traveled to Rwanda to hire a research consultant and to debrief specialists familiar with the Rwanda health sector and private sector. In this activity, HPI supports national level public-private dialogue around legal, regulatory, and operational barriers to increased participation in FP provision. With both sectors at the table, we will foster the development of strategies that create an enabling environment for private sector participation in family planning and identify ways for the public and private sectors to work together to ensure access to family planning for all. After reviewing different strategies that support public-private collaboration, we will work to implement selected strategies.

Senegal
In January 2009 I became technical manager for all Futures Group work in Senegal.

RAPID Senegal
I managed the final stages of a nation-wide application of the RAPID model and ensured its high-quality, on-time, and on-budget completion. We completed two deliverables in French--A PowerPoint presentation and a 30 page booklet.

Contact Information
You may reach me via yahoo email:  z1p1t ...or you may click on the discussion tab of this Wikipedia user page.