Podcast: Reimagining technical assistance over coffee: episode 6 – Gender equality

In the final podcast in this six-part series, Alexandra Nastase discusses gender equality with Johanna Riha.

Authors

This podcast series comprises a set of informal conversations with experienced practitioners and development partners on the practicalities of delivering effective technical assistance, the day-to-day challenges of doing things differently, and suggestions drawn from their own experiences. It's about reimagining technical assistance over coffee if you like.

In this episode, we discuss how to design, implement and evaluate programmes that are intentional in advancing gender equality with Johanna Riha (bio below). The basis of our discussion is a recently finalised study, which investigates what works in gender and health across a series of case studies, from UN agencies working on global health.

We explore:

  • What could development practitioners do in their day-to-day work to be more intentional about advancing gender equality?
  • What works in advancing gender in health programmes?
  • What does an effective organisational gender architecture look like?
  • What are some of the challenges to having relevant actors speaking with a common voice on gender and equality, and engaging towards a common objective? What are the practical solutions?
  • What is the Gender and Health Hub, how will it work, and what sort of information development practitioners should expect to be able to access?

Enjoy the conversation! If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to get in touch with Alexandra Nastase on LinkedIn via email.

About Johanna:

Johanna Riha is a Research Fellow at the United Nations University’s International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) working in the Gender and Health Policy Hub. She is an epidemiologist with almost ten years of experience in health policy and public health research, largely focusing on Africa. Johanna’s research interests include NCDs, intersectional health research with a gender focus, emerging health technologies, preventative healthcare, as well as human resources for health. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

About Alexandra:

Alexandra Nastase is an experienced development professional who has designed, implemented and evaluated multiple public sector change programmes over the past decade. Alexandra’s work is centred on advancing structural reforms, strengthening state capability and government performance to deliver public services in Europe, Asia and Africa. She held multiple leadership and senior advisory roles for large-scale technical assistance programmes funded by the World Bank, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the European Commission, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and UN agencies. Before joining OPM, she also worked for the World Bank, UN, and other non-governmental organisations

Check out our series on the topic:

Area of expertise

Governance