Biography

Dr Sophie Witter is a Health Economist, with 20 years' experience in Asia, Africa and transitional economies. She currently combines her role as Associate Consultant with the Health portfolio of OPM with a Readership in Health Systems at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, and a Research Fellowship at the University of Aberdeen. Her areas of interest include health financing in low- and middle-income countries, financial barriers to access, human resources for health, and performance-based funding mechanisms. She has extensive experience of conducting and managing quantative and qualitative research in health and development. She is coordinator for the FEMHealth research project, funded by the EU, and a Senior Researcher on REBUILD, a consortium undertaking health systems research in post-conflict countries. She recently published a book on finance for obstetric care and finalised a PhD on the impact of the removal of user fees in Ghana and Senegal. Recent consultancy work includes advice to the Government of Sudan on their free care policy for under-fives and pregnant women (2010-11), leading a health labour market study in Vietnam (2010), writing a synthesis paper on demand-side financing for reproductive health care for the World Bank (2010), drafting the Liberia National Health Financing Policy and Plan (2010-11), leading a tracking study of national compliance with human resources for health targets (with GHWA, 2010), advising the National Health System Support Programme, Nepal (2010) and providing inputs into the National Socio-Economic Development Strategy in Vietnam (2011).