I am a UK-based health development professional, with more than 25 years of experience working in research, education, management and consultancy. I have designed, delivered and evaluated health projects and programmes for community, district, regional and national health systems in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America working with government, UN agencies, global health partnerships, research institutions, consultancy companies and NGOs. I have been a member of technical and management advisory groups on several large multi-million pound DFID funded technical assistance programmes, providing guidance in relation to my core areas of expertise which include health systems strengthening, quality improvement in health care, strategic planning, capacity development and evaluation of health programmes. My research and consultancy work has resulted in a range of publications including global guidance and national strategy documents, policy briefs, training manuals, book chapters and journal articles. I have extensive experience in the development of context specific healthcare quality assurance systems and have delivered institutional capacity strengthening programmes across the developing world. I have considerable experience in strategic and operational planning and has supported the strategic planning process for a range of institutions including GAVI, MoH Bhutan, National AIDS Control Programmes in Kenya and Namibia and the European Esther Alliance (EEA). I have a keen interest in capacity development and effectiveness of institutional health partnerships and have evaluated diverse health partnership programmes between southern institutions and their partners in the global north. I have a passion for ensuring that all forms of technical assistance, whether research, training, consultancy or volunteering are delivered effectively and within an ethical framework. I worked for the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and their technical assistance company LATH from 1993 – 2009. I am the co-founding director of Capacity Development International, a Liverpool-based consultancy company which is dedicated to improving the effectiveness of development assistance in health.
I am Director of Studies for the LSTM Certificate Programme in International Health Consultancy which is a 3-week executive/senior level professional development programme which aims to enhance the knowledge, skills and competencies of health and development professionals wishing to enter or already working in the field of international health consultancy. I also contribute to the LSTM Masters in International Public Health Programme, I currently supervise 1 PhD student and act as an occasional PhD internal examiner for LSTM. I am an honorary lecturer at Freiburg University, where I lead their quality improvement module in urban health systems for their flagship MSc Programme in Global Urban Health.
My company Capacity Development International (CDI), collaborate closely with the LSTM Capacity Research Unit (CRU). Together we are delivering on a technical assistance contract from GIZ/BMBF (German Government) to design and conduct an evaluation of their 50 Million Euro programme “Research Networks for Health Innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa” (2018 – 2022). I also collaborate closely with the LSTM Community Health Systems Group and am the quality improvement and capacity development adviser to the USAID funded “SQALE” Programme for which LSTM is the prime contractor and LVCT Health, Kenya is the lead Kenyan organisation. This programme is an implementation research programme which aims to embed quality improvement into the scale-up of Kenya’s community health program working closely with and building the capacity of MoH national, county, sub-county and community levels.