Meet the MLI Country Leads

Country Leads play a critical role in success of MLI. They are the point of contact between the Ministry of Health team, key donors and technical partners, and external consultants. In addition to facilitating in-country communication, Country Leads coordinate the implementation of the technical assistance package for each country. 

Each Country Lead brings unique and relevant experiences from their backgrounds:

Hortenzia Beciu, MLI Country Lead for Sierra Leone, is both a medical doctor and a public health practitioner. She practiced medicine in Romania for five years and has subsequently worked in public health for eight years as a consultant for the Pan-American Health Organization and the World Bank. Hortenzia has provided technical assistance for a number of countries in Africa including: Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and Zambia.

Rahel Gizaw brings a depth of understanding to her role as MLI Country Lead for Ethiopia, as she has previously worked with the Federal Ministry of Health in Ethiopia. She provided major technical assistance on the topic of donor harmonization and alignment of health sector programs, a core issue area of MLI. As an advocacy and research officer with ActionAid Ethiopia, she led and coordinated an HIV resource tracking project and provided research on the intersection between HIV and violence against women. In addition, she monitored and evaluated the implementation of HIV prevention programs of ten partner organizations. Rahel is now based in Addis Ababa and speaks Amharic.

Allison Gamble Kelley, MLI Country Lead for Mali, is a health economist with 15 years of experience managing and providing technical assistance to social sector projects in international development, largely across Africa. Critical to her role on MLI, Allison has worked on community-based health insurance in Mali since 1998, a key priority area for MLI support to the country. She has provided policy advice on health systems monitoring and strengthening to senior levels of local and national governments and major international organizations, including WHO, the International Labor Organization and the World Bank. Allison is currently based in Geneva and speaks French.

Ndack Ly, our MLI Country Lead for Senegal, was initially trained as a dental surgeon before receiving her degree in health economics. After her time spent in the dental surgery field, she began working at the Ministry of Health in Senegal. Since 2004 she has been the focal point for the National Health Accounts in the Health Funding and Partnership Support Unit and coordinated and developed the first National Health Accounts in Senegal. Ndack gained experience managing the technical committee and coordinating closely with the technical and financial partners, including WHO, UNPFA, Coopération Française, and Abt Associates. 

Gabriele Mallapaty, our Country Lead for Nepal, has 25 years of experience in public health, working at the grassroots level as well as with Ministries of Health and donors in both the public and private sector. Gabriele has lived and worked in a diverse set of countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and America.  Before her recent move to Nepal, she worked at UNICEF and co-chaired the Health System Strengthening task team of the GAVI Alliance. She is also a leading authority in the field of primary health care laboratory services and has conceptualized, designed and published a website solely dedicated to this area within the public health field.  Gabriele now lives in Kathmandu and speaks several languages, including German, Nepali, French, Chinese and Arabic.