Gender Helpdesk experts

The Helpdesk if staffed by 15 experts, who together cover all thematic areas, have extensive experience from Sida cooperation countries, master multiple working languages, and are familiar with providing helpdesk-type of support.

Alice Behrendt
Alice Behrendt holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology. She brings extensive experience within SRHR and health systems and services, specialising in strategy development, programme design, monitoring, evaluation and research of development and humanitarian programmes. Her technical areas of expertise include SRHR and reproductive violence, gender, harmful traditional practices (FGM/C, CEFM), mental health, child protection, education, and child and youth participation. She has worked for the last 16 years in multiple countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Alice is passionate about working with participatory, gender sensitive and inclusive data collection designs. She is highly skilled in qualitative and quantitative data analysis (using SPSS, Tableau, MAXQDA, CSPro and Excel), report writing and editing. As a strategic thinker, engaging facilitator and cross-cultural fit, Alice is adept at breaking silos and at bringing people together for finding and implementing innovative and participatory solutions.

Alice Schmidt
Alice Schmidt is a senior health and development expert with two Master’s degrees and 20 years of experience in 30 countries. She is furthermore a regular lecturer on sustainable development at European universities. Alice specialises in the design of results frameworks, research methodologies and evaluation tools as well as conducting participatory reviews and evaluations; strategic partnership and stakeholder assessments with a political economy focus; and producing reports and other written materials. Alice has worked with 50+ institutions, ranging from national and international NGOs to various UN and other multilateral agencies (e.g. WB, EC) as well as the private sector at the global, regional and national level. This includes work with global partnerships and large donor-funded programmes. While having focused on global health for a large part of her career, Alice has significant cross-sector experience in social development, planetary health, WASH, education, poverty reduction, inclusive innovation, urbanisation, public-private collaboration and effective development cooperation. Alice has acted as a team leader on a range of reviews of DFID-funded programmes, and has played an instrumental role in several consecutive rounds of International Health Partnership and related Initiatives (IHP+) monitoring.

Allison Beattie
Allisson Beattie has more than 30 years of development experience, 20 years of which was gained living and working in developing, fragile and post-conflict countries. Allison has worked with a wide range of stakeholders including country governments, all major donors, CSOs, development banks, and UN agencies. She has skills in programme design, institutional analysis, research and evaluation, policy formulation, consensus building, effective development cooperation, and support to managing and leading complex processes. Her key technical expertise includes the global health agenda; health systems strengthening; health equity and equality: RMNCAH, neglected tropical diseases, communicable and non-communicable diseases, and nutrition. Since 2014, Allison works on processes aimed at strengthening the global health architecture and improving global policy in support of strengthening country-led health systems strengthening. Allison is a serving member of the Technical Review Panel (TRP) of the Global Fund and was drafted into the first cadre of Strategic Investment and Sustainable Financing experts, a recent innovation of the TRP aimed at helping the Global Fund reduce its verticality and strengthen the way its programmes promote sustainable and integrated health systems. She is a research associate at Queen Margaret’s University, Edinburgh and a member of the Faculty of Public Health, UK’s professional public health body.

Allisson Cantor
With over 15 years of professional experience, Ms. Allison Cantor has a PhD in Medical Anthropology and a Master’s degree in Public Health, specialising in maternal and child health. Allison has conducted public health research using mixed methods approaches to investigate reproductive health and maternal food insecurity in Latin America and the U.S., working in multilateral environments and collaborating with non-profit and governmental entities. Allison is a qualitative analysis expert with in-depth knowledge of MAXQDA and other software, though she also has experience in quantitative data collection and analysis techniques. Her work is well-published in high impact journals such as Maternal and Child Health. Allison emphasises participatory and engaging methodologies in her work. These have been applied where she was the lead evaluator for the Médecins Sans Frontières US COVID intervention; the in-country lead for the Sierra Leone case study for assessing WHO’s MNCH Quality of Care initiative; and the core team member for the UNFPA Leaving no one behind (LNOB) Global Assessment.

Andrea Irvin
Andrea Irvin is a senior health and SRHR expert with a particular specialisation in Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in and out of school, adolescent health and youth friendly services, empowerment and wellbeing, HIV and AIDS, gender-based violence, and life skills. Andrea has global influence and contribution particularly in the topic of CSE: She is the main author behind the International Technical and Programmatic Guidance on Out-of-School Comprehensive Sexuality Education published by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The majority of Andrea’s work has been with over 10 UNFPA regional and country offices, predominantly in Asia and the Pacific but also extensively in South Asia, Africa and MENA. Andrea is currently based in Fiji and has had long-term placements in Morocco, Nigeria, Cameroon, Nepal, Mongolia, and Papua New Guinea. She has extensive experience with capacity development and training for international stakeholders (e.g., UNFPA, UNICEF, UNDP), national ministries of health and education, the private sector and CSOs.

Annica Holmberg
Annica Holmberg is a gender, Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA) and health expert, with expertise on SRHR and LGBTI+ in the context of international development cooperation since 1997. Annica is a senior expert member (level 1 consultant) on three thematic helpdesks to Sida on (1) Gender, (2) Global Health and SRHR, and (3) Democracy and Human Rights. She has conducted assignments for Sida, Danida, Norad, Finnish MFA, USAID, Dutch MFA, and a large number of international CSOs. For the last decade, Annica has focused mainly on evaluations on gender, SRHR programmes, and technical assistance and trainings on HRBA, gender and SRHR. Notably, she has evaluated the Guttmacher Institute on two occasions: 2020 Review of the Guttmacher Programme, SRHR research projects funded by DFID, and 2018-2019 Formative and summative evaluation of Sida’s global support to Guttmacher Institute (as team leader). She applies a gender transformative, intersectional, power-oriented and rights-based approach to all her assignments. Annica is well acquainted with qualitative and quantitative data collection methods and analysis, with a broad experience from participatory techniques, as well as results-based management, contribution analysis, Theory of Change-based evaluations, outcome mapping and outcome harvesting. She is furthermore a highly appreciated facilitator and trainer.

Camilla Winther Kragelund
Camilla Winther Kragelund brings extensive experience in programmes for transforming harmful gender norms in the Global South. She holds deep expertise in gender equality, SRHR, GBV, harmful practices, inclusion of marginalised groups and the interlinkages to health and education – access to safe abortion, family planning, and comprehensive sexuality education. Her experience spans both policy level and at operational level, having worked with institutional donors, policy makers, national partners and local community groups, and importantly too, the international normative space for SRHR and gender which in recent years have seen both progress and backlash. Recently, Camilla has provided technical support to Norad’s Section for Gender Equality and Norad’s SRHR portfolio, gaining substantial knowledge about Norwegian policy priorities in SRHR in the process. Having worked with gender in humanitarian emergencies since 2005, she has researched and consulted both on the unique risks and needs faced by women and girls in crisis settings and also on the central role that women and girls can play in inclusive humanitarian action and resilience building. She continues to undertake short-term assignments in conflict-affected areas, e.g. to Ukraine and Tigray/Ethiopia, and published a learning review entitled “Gender Equality and SRHR in Humanitarian Settings” on behalf of Danish NGOs in 2021.

Josef Decosas
Josef Decosas holds an MD degree from the University of British Columbia and a master’s degree in Health Administration from the University of Ottawa. He has a Specialist Certificate in Family Medicine from the Collège des Médecins du Québec and has completed two years of a Residency in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health of the University of Ottawa. He has held positions in several governmental and non-governmental organisations including the former CIDA, Canadian Public Health Association, the German Technical Cooperation and Plan International. He has lived and worked in Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone for a total of 17 years. From 2005 to 2010 he served on the Technical Review Panel of the Global Fund. Since 2008 he works full-time as a partner in hera, specialising in complex evaluations of development and research programmes in health systems, SRHR and general public health issues. In 2019 and 2022, he led the hera team that conducted the external evaluation of the Human Reproduction Programme (HRP) and in 2019/2020 the Summative Evaluation of the innovating for maternal and child health in Africa (IMCHA). He participated in the final evaluation of the FCDO Maternal and Neonatal Health Programme in Kenya with the specific task of evaluating the County Innovation Challenge Fund that supported innovation and implementation research projects in maternal and neonatal health.

Justine Jensen
Justine Jensen is a gender specialist and maternal/neonatal registered nurse with over ten years’ experience working on issues affecting women and girls. Her technical areas of expertise include gender equality, SRHR, and harmful practices, including female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and child, early and forced marriage (CEFM). Justine has experience in mixed methods data collection, including participatory methods, analysis, and research. She has contributed to several monitoring and evaluation projects, including complex multi-country programmes across Africa and Asia. Recently, Justine provided technical oversight and contributed to project for the Mid-term Assessment of the Spotlight Initiative – a multi-year initiative between the EU and UN on elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls. Justine speaks French and has lived in West Africa where she gained direct experience designing and implementing health and development projects with local organisations.

Leen Jille
Leen Jille is a public health expert with 15 years of relevant working experience in programme design, assessments, and evaluations. He holds a Master’s in Public Health, Orientation Health Policies and Management of Health Systems (ITM-Antwerp), and has a Certificate in Global Health Diplomacy (State University New York). Prior to becoming a partner at hera in 2014, Leen worked on behalf of UNICEF for four years with the Mozambican Ministry of Health and its partners, where he co-presided the SWAp medicine working group. In addition, he provided general support to the Health Partners Group and acted as Focal Partner during the 2012 Office of the Inspector General’s audit for The Global Fund. Leen has conducted several assignments for Norad on the topic of health and SRHR in development cooperation, e.g. developing a briefing package for a Norad panellist for the launch of The Lancet series on Women’s and Children’s Health in Conflict Settings, external evaluation of the Global Health Preparedness Programme, etc. Leen has co-led the cooperation between Gavi and UNICEF Supply Division regarding the global procurement of Gavi-funded vaccines, immunisation devices and cold chain equipment. Leen was also part of the team that evaluated Effective Development Cooperation (EDC) practices of a number of multi- and bilateral development agencies for IHP+ (now UHC2030) and was a senior consultant involved in the 5th Monitoring Round for IHP+ at country level in Mozambique and Cameroon.

Leo Devillé
Leo Devillé has a Doctor in Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrics degree from the University of Leuven (Belgium) and a Master of Health Planning and Financing from the London School of Economics (UK). He has additional diplomas in tropical medicine (Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp) and in epidemiology, statistics and operational research (University of Brussels). He has worked in international development as a clinician, public health physician, technical/policy advisor, and evaluator since 1983. Currently he is project director for two long-term third party monitoring contracts in DRC and Kenya on behalf of FCDO. Regarding research, he guided or was involved as key expert in several assignments, including two global evaluations of health research carried out by the ITM (Antwerp); formative and summative evaluations of the Africa health systems initiative to African partnerships (AHSI-RES; IDRC Canada) and most recently in the review of Swedish support to health research carried out by icddr,b (Bangladesh). Leo also assisted EMRO (WHO) in assessing the relevance of using development aid effectiveness indicators in humanitarian aid context (nexus). He is the Project Director of the Health Advisory Services (HAS), providing policy and strategic support to the DEVCO G4 health unit of the EC. Leo has worked in Burundi, DRC, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Marta Medina
Marta Medina has 34+ years of experience in international health sector policy, health systems strengthening in developing countries, integration of health services, monitoring and evaluation of health programmes/projects. She has been member of the WHO Executive Committee (1989-1990), served as the Nicaraguan Representative to the UNICEF Executive Board (1989-1990) and was member of the Technical Review Panel of The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, HIV and Malaria (2014-2019). For the last 15 years, Marta has focused on monitoring and evaluation of SRHR programmes with gender equality and rights perspective (the Caribbean, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Nigeria, Central America, Sierra Leone); maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent’s health programmes (Central America, Malawi, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Bolivia, Nigeria, Mozambique, Sierra Leone) and HIV/AIDs programmes (Central America, Mozambique, The Caribbean). She is experienced in evaluation and long-term monitoring of health programmes, requiring the use of mixed methods for data collection and analysis of several data sources. She was the regional team leader for the Spotlight Initiative Mid-Term Evaluation of projects in Latin America (UN Women, 2020- 2022) and team leader for the Multi-Year Annual Survey to Monitor Programme Effectiveness of the Improving Reproductive, Maternal and Newborn Health (IRMNH) Programme in Sierra Leone.

Michele Kosremelli Asmar
Michele Asmar holds a Ph.D. in Management (health field) from Paris Dauphine University, a Master’s degree in Health Administration from the University of Montreal, Canada, and a postgraduate degree in Institutional Management-Health Care from the University of Concordia, Canada. Her recent publications focus on public health, health systems and health systems data, inter-professional collaboration and coordination, disability and inclusion health management, quality and accreditation, technology and health, health care, human resources, health economics. She has lectured and consulted on health systems and reforms in Lebanon, France and Canada. She has led several projects and research in the field of public health both locally and internationally (local and regional WHO, Ministry of Public Health, Internal Security Forces, NGOs) with the most recent on the private health sector and on the description of the Lebanese healthcare system for the WHO. Michele has been a consultant in the World Bank project on the Lebanese Health Sector reform, and in the EU-MADAD Evaluation project: Third Party Monitoring of the Lebanon Health Programme for Syrian Refugees and Vulnerable Lebanese Population. Michele is the president of the NGO “Include”, which promotes the inclusion of children, youth and adults with special needs in Lebanese society.

Olena Suslova
Olena Suslova has over 30 of years of experience in the civil society sector with a great focus on gender issues in different spheres with proven experience in analysis and recommendations on gender-sensitive and social inclusion approach including sectors such as SRHR, gender-based violence (GBV), Women, Peace and Security (WPS), health and development. She possesses in-depth knowledge of social inclusion and gender equality mainstreaming and strategy development including different types of gender analysis – gender audit, gender planning, gender impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation, gender mainstreaming strategies, gender sensitivity in human resources management, but also of the legislative environment for gender. Olena has extensive experience with advocacy and communication ranging from the grassroot to governmental level. She has knowledge of government/civil society dialogue and consultation mechanisms; of law drafting for gender advocacy, etc. Olena has a proven track record as a trainer (curricula development, manuals, proposed methodology, training of trainers, etc.) and as a facilitator. Olena is a team member on the current Sida Gender Helpdesk where she provides expertise on SRHR and GBV.

Ronald Horstman
Ronald Horstman obtained a Master’s degree in Demography and Statistics at the University of Groningen (Netherlands). During his professional career he worked for UN organisations (UNAIDS, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNDP, WHO), the World Bank, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI). Since 2007 he has been working as an international consultant at ‘Public Health Consultants’. With over 30 years of experience in research (demography, health economics, sociology), and in designing and evaluating health programmes and systems (public and private health care, reproductive and adolescent health, HIV/AIDS programmes, results-based financing in health, (non)routine data collections systems, health sector-wide approaches and reforms), he has a profound understanding of global evaluation standards, theories, models and methods. He is specifically interested in health policies and results-based planning and management that is actively supported by evidence-based decision making and a participatory development approach.