Staff Bios: A-E
- Carlos Avila
- Kathryn Banke
- Elaine M. Baruwa
- Alix Beith
- Karishmah Bhuwanee
- Nejmudin Bilal
- Ricardo Bitrán
- Kenneth Cahill
- Slavea Chankova
- Grace Chee
- Yann Derriennic
- Tesfaye Dereje
- Maria Claudia De Valdenebro
- Rena Eichler
- Marianne El-Khoury
- Alex Ergo
Dr. Carlos Avila has 15 years of experience in health financing, social protection, health insurance, resource tracking, cost-effectiveness, and quality of care. Previously, at UNAIDS, he served as team leader for the Strategic Intelligence Unit where he created alliances and networks of practitioners within and across countries to conduct economic analyses such as forecasting resources to achieve universal access targets, measuring the impact of AIDS investments, value for money, and return on investment. Prior to UNAIDS, he worked at Mexico’s Ministry of Health designing and launching Seguro Popular, the country’s insurance program designed for low-income populations. His work included design of the service package, costing and actuarial analyses, and support for the accelerated enrollment of 5 million families in 10 Mexican states within a period of two years. Dr. Avila was a practicing medical doctor and researcher from 1986 until he joined the Ministry of Health in 2001. He has numerous publications in peer review journals on topics ranging from cost-effectiveness analysis of HIV/AIDS treatments to trends in HIV/AIDS financing and program effectiveness. Dr. Avila holds a PhD in international health from Harvard University. He is fluent in English, a native Spanish speaker, and speaks intermediate French.
Carlos_Avila@abtassoc.com
Dr. Kathryn Banke has 9 years of epidemiology experience, with strong interests in field epidemiology, infectious disease surveillance, training, and research. Recent assignments include leading USAID-funded projects related to developing and strengthening avian influenza and other infectious disease surveillance and response systems in Tanzania and Azerbaijan, and immunization management information system strengthening in Yemen. She also supports monitoring and evaluation and research activities for the USAID-funded Private Sector Partnerships (PSP-One) project. Previously, she conducted and managed several research activities for the Global Immunization Division at the Centers for Disease Control, leading to first authorship of nine publications in peer-reviewed journals. In addition to extensive work experience in infectious disease epidemiology, she has also worked in the epidemiology of diabetes and renal disease. Dr. Banke has worked in numerous countries including Tanzania, Azerbaijan, Yemen, India, Afghanistan, Zambia, DR Congo, and the Latin America and Caribbean region. Dr. Banke has a PhD in epidemiology from Emory University and a BA in human biology from Stanford University. She is conversant in French and Spanish.
bankek@abtassoc.com
Elaine M. Baruwa has over 7 years experience designing and conducting economic evaluations in international health. Dr. Baruwa has evaluated projects in the health systems of the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and Nigeria. Previously, she has worked for GAVI’s PneumoADIP, based in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where she was the health economist working on vaccine demand forecasting, the sources and costs of vaccine wastage, and the long-term impact of vaccination on education and productivity. With Helen Keller International Dr. Baruwa worked on ensuring the financial sustainability of cataract programs in the Guangdong Province, China and her research helped to broaden the understanding and application of contingent valuation techniques in resource poor environments both in the academic literature and in health policy practice. Dr. Baruwa received her BSc in financial economics from Birkbeck College, University of London, an MSc in international health management from Imperial College University and a PhD in international health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she subsequently held a faculty position.
elaine_baruwa@abtassoc.com
Alix Beith has over 12 years of experience in international public health in a number of technical, program management, and geographical areas. For Health Systems 20/20, her technical foci include pharmaceutical management, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and health policy and financing. As an independent international public health consultant contracted through Broad Branch Associates, she is currently leading development of a paper on risk and causal factors of drug resistance for the Center for Global Development. Other recent undertakings include acting as a coordinator for the Health Systems Action Network (HSAN), developing fact sheets on selected innovative financing mechanisms for health, developing a report on contraceptive security in the context of decentralization and integration in Latin America and the Caribbean, and surveying and development of status reports for OGAC targeted evaluation studies. Previously, Alix worked for Management Sciences for Health, where her main focus was desktop research, survey/policy analysis, and development of policy recommendations regarding interventions to improve case detection and adherence to TB and HIV medicines. Alix has a bachelor's degree in biology and French from Tufts University and a M.Sc. in health policy, planning, and financing from the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is fluent in Spanish and French.
alixbeith@yahoo.com
Karishmah Bhuwanee has 7 years of experience in public and private financial management, international development, budget analysis, and health sector capacity building. Karishmah served as an economist in the Ministry of Health in Burundi under the DFID-funded ODI Fellowship Programme. She was responsible for costing and financial analysis of the performance-based financing system in the ministry, and for developing budgets and working on the ministry’s expenditure framework. Previously, Karishmah was a financial management adviser for The Crowne Agents for Overseas Governments and Administrations Ltd. where she supported projects in Cambodia, Tanzania, Bahamas, Malawi, Kenya, Yemen, and Kosovo & Montenegro. She also worked for UNICEF Uganda and Justice Africa on a study into the effectiveness of the Cape Town Principles on child-rights policy and implementation. Karishmah is fluent in English and French. She received a MSc in international development from the London School of Economics.
Karishmah_Bhuwanee@abtassoc.com
Dr. Nejmudin Kedir Bilal, a health economist, has more than a decade of health systems development and strengthening experience. Dr. Bilal worked closely with Ethiopia’s Minister of Health, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, serving as his director of planning from 2005 to 2009. Dr. Bilal oversaw the country’s health sector reform process and led the use of the marginal budgeting for bottlenecks tool for evidence-based health planning and budgeting. Dr. Bilal oversaw donor coordination, resource mobilization, health care financing, national health accounts, and the expansion and equipping of health facilities. He led a team to write a successful GAVI proposal, which secured $76 million to strengthen Ethiopia’s health system. Dr. Bilal earned his medical degree from Gondar University in Ethiopia and a master’s in health policy, planning and management from the University of Leeds, England.
nejmudin_bilal@abtassoc.com
Dr. Ricardo Bitrán is a senior health economist with 25 years of experience in Chile, the US, and over 40 developing countries. He is a professor of public health at the University of Chile’s School of Public Health and a professor of health economics at the school’s Master in Public Policy Program. Dr. Bitrán is also adjunct assistant professor at Boston’s University School of Public Health. His expertise includes the economic evaluation of health investment and reform projects, the study of health care markets, the analysis of equity, efficiency, and financial sustainability, and the delivery and financing of primary health care services. Dr. Bitrán served as the research director for the USAID-funded Health Financing and Sustainability project. Since 1994 he has been Bitrán y Asociados’ president and senior partner. He has twenty years of academic experience, with teaching posts or assignments in Chile, the US, France, Lebanon, China, Zaire, Thailand, and many other countries. He has served as senior advisor to the GAVI Alliance and World Bank on health immunizations issues and academic director of the World Bank Institute’s Flagship Program in Health Sector Reform and Sustainable Financing in Latin American and the Caribbean Region. Dr. Bitrán is author of numerous academic articles, books, and scientific papers.
ricardo.bitran@bitran.cl
Mr. Cahill’s experience includes 14 years of international consulting with BearingPoint and 15 years as a manager and policy analyst with the U.S. Congressional Research Service. His technical work has focused on health care financing and delivery, health operations and organizational development, public and private pension policy and reform, social protection, and most recently the regulation of non-bank financial institutions. Mr. Cahill has developed business and executed projects for major international bi-lateral and multi-lateral donor agencies (USAID, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Asian Development Bank). He has consulted for key counterparts in parliaments, ministries of health, social security/protection, and with financial sector regulators. Mr. Cahill has worked on and managed projects in a number of transition and emerging market countries including Egypt, Bulgaria, Kosovo, India, China, Iraq, Montenegro, Indonesia, Ukraine, Malawi, Jamaica, Bosnia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Macedonia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan. Mr. Cahill has a master’s in political science from the University of North Carolina.
kenneth.cahill@bearingpoint.com
Slavea Chankova is a senior analyst with experience in Eastern Europe and South Asia. Her experience includes evaluating the effects of mutual health organizations on the demand for priority health services, particularly maternal health services, in Ghana and Mali; quantifying the human resource needs for reaching PEPFAR and MDG-related targets in Kenya and Nigeria using health facility survey data; reviewing the human resources situation in the Zambian health sector; and co-authoring a chapter on health financing in a health systems assessment tool. She has completed a survey of the evidence on financial barriers to the utilization of maternal health care. Prior work assignments include data analysis and program evaluation of the Integrated Child Development Program in India, HIV/AIDS prevention, gender mainstreaming, and microfinance projects with UNICEF-India, the UN Capital Development Fund, and the Microfinance Information Exchange. She holds a master’s degree in public affairs and a certificate in health and health policy from Princeton University, and a BA in economics from Bates College. Ms. Chankova speaks fluent English, Bulgarian, and Russian.
slavea_chankova@abtassoc.com
Grace Chee has over 20 years of experience in international development, in the areas of program evaluation, health sector financing, immunization financing, strengthening financial and management aspects of program implementation, cost-effectiveness analysis, and private sector participation in health care. She provides technical input to the Health Systems 20/20 project, including leading the development of a course for U.S. government staff and host country counterparts on health system strengthening, and co-leading the Tanzania Health System Assessment. She has led two evaluations of the impact of the GAVI Alliance’s Immunization Services Support funding, as well as a comprehensive assessment of all of GAVI’s activities during its first five years. She directed Abt Associates’ work as a subcontractor on the Indonesia Health Services Program, a four-year project focusing on supporting decentralization and private sector partnerships to improve maternal, neonatal and child health. As the Project Director of the Children’s Vaccine Program, she managed project implementation and provided technical assistance to improve the financial sustainability of immunization programs. Prior to joining Abt, Ms. Chee was a Program Manager with the PROFIT project, where she supported private sector participation in family planning in India and Kenya. She received her bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is fluent in Chinese.
grace_chee@abtassoc.com
Yann Derriennic is a health systems and financing specialist with more than 25 years of field experience, mostly in Africa. His areas of expertise include health management, finance, strategic planning, organizational development, SWAps, program and project implementation, and evaluations. Mr. Derriennic has in-depth knowledge of African health system functioning and reforms, and has worked on and in SWAps and sector-wide approaches. Mr. Derriennic is currently assisting the Malian government in the analysis of health expenditure data from the latest DHS. Also in Mali, he is leading reflection on the impact of free malaria services and drugs on health system sustainability. Mr. Derriennic also works in Benin, where he provides institutional strengthening support to the National HIV/AIDS commission and is leading a study on indigent care and community based health financing organizations. An expert on malaria financing, Mr. Derriennic is co-chair of the Roll Back Malaria Resources Working Group. He is fluent in English and French and is based in Tunisia. Mr. Derriennic has an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Glendale Arizona.
yann_derriennic@abtassoc.com
Tesfaye Dereje has ten years of experience supporting the design and implementation of health finance reforms and research to inform policy. In Liberia, he assisted the MOH develop a new health financing policy and strategic plan for 2011-2015 to improve equity and sustainability. He has extensive experience building capacity including the development of training materials and facilitation of training events in such areas as costing; legal framework preparation; program design, planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting. He has been involved in research to enhance public-private partnership in health; willingness and ability to pay for health, redesigning the fee-waiver and exemption system, health facility revenue retention, hospital autonomy, setting-up and expanding revolving drug fund schemes; and generating data for decision making (NHA, marginal-budgeting for bottlenecks). As a UNICEF health insurance advisor seconded to Ethiopia’s MOH, he coordinated the design of Ethiopia’s social health insurance (SHI) plan and piloting of community based health insurance (CBHI) including finalization of the SHI legal framework, benefit package, and assessing the SHI financial sustainability. Mr. Dereje has MA in development evaluation and management from the Institute of Development Policies and Management, University of Antwerp in Belgium and a BA in economics from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. He is fluent in English and a native speaker of Amharic.
Tesfaye_Dereje@abtassoc.com
Ms. De Valdenebro has over 20 years experience in the management, design, creation, and production of printed matter, collaterals, and electronic information systems for private and public sector agencies and government entities. Likewise, she has experience in providing training both nationally and internationally, in presentation techniques, graphic design, website development, and various software packages for personnel in ministries of health, education, and planning and statistics for countries in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Ms. De Valdenebro has designed and produced hundreds of products including reports, brochures, circulars, logotypes, books, magazines, catalogs, flyers, portfolios, exhibits, newsletters, toolkits, websites, and multimedia presentations. In 2003, she designed and produced the U.S. Department of Education’s annual report and report to Congress. Previously, Ms. De Valdenebro directed her own consulting and contracting firm where she established contracts with various U.S. government agencies as well as with other public and private sector companies. Ms. De Valdenebro is a native Spanish speaker, and received her BA and master’s in art and communication from Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogotá, Colombia.
mariaclaudia_de_valdenebro@abtassoc.com
Dr. Rena Eichler has earned an international reputation as a leader in the design, implementation, and evaluation of payment systems that link provider/consumer payments to results. In Haiti, Dr. Eichler designed and helped implement a USAID-funded program that contracts with NGOs whose payments are linked to the achievement of health results. In addition, Dr. Eichler partnered with the World Bank and WHO to identify tuberculosis control programs that use financial and material incentives to improve case detection and treatment completion. Widely disseminated results are now influencing tuberculosis programs worldwide to introduce incentives that address program performance challenges. Recognition that nonfunctional health systems cannot prevent disease and promote health led Dr. Eichler to partner with the Partners for Health Reformplus (PHRplus) project to lay the foundation for the creation of the Health Systems Action Network (HSAN), a global entity that will promote stronger and more coordinated action to strengthen health systems. Dr. Eichler has effectively integrated private sector management skills with her technical training as an economist to manage and mentor mid-level staff and to develop, manage, implement, and evaluate field and research activities. In addition, she has presented the results of her work at numerous workshops, conferences, and technical seminars. Dr. Eichler holds a PhD in economics from Boston University.
renaeichler@comcast.net
Marianne El-Khoury is an economist focusing on Health Systems 20/20 work on health workforce planning in Egypt. Previously, Marianne spent 5 years working at both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, where she focused on a wide variety of fields including public sector governance, poverty alleviation, public expenditure management, and financial sector reform. She has extensive experience in data analysis and participated in various technical assistance missions to countries of the Middle East and North Africa region. She holds a master's degree in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University with a concentration in development studies. She has a second master's degree and a BA in economics from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. Marianne is fluent in Arabic, English, and French and has working knowledge of Spanish.
marianne_elkhoury@abtassoc.com
Dr. Ergo is a Senior Health Economist with Broad Branch Associates working on Health Systems 20/20. He started his career in global health 20 years ago as a health economist with Médecins Sans Frontières in Chad. He has lived and worked in numerous countries, from middle-income to fragile states including Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Laos, Senegal, Slovakia, and Tanzania. His professional expertise includes the development of national health insurance, the design of performance-based financing schemes, the strengthening of health information systems, results-based management, economic evaluation and strategic planning. Alex has tackled health systems challenges from different perspectives and positions, namely service delivery NGOs, Ministries of Health, local health authorities, bilateral contracts such as Danida and Department for International Development, and multilaterals such as WHO and the World Bank. He has conducted research and analytical work in the areas of health equity and results-based financing. Alex received his masters in Health Economics from University of York in the UK and his PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
alexergo@broadbranch.org
Contact Us
