Tanya Jones, Ph.D., M.P.A., is an international development leader with more than 20 years of experience building and executing global health, education and women’s empowerment initiatives in Africa and South Asia.
As a managing director at R4D, Dr. Jones provides strategic and operational leadership for roughly half of the organization’s portfolio of programs and serves on the R4D executive team. Dr. Jones work with R4D’s practice area leads to create and fund a robust pipeline of programs, oversee the design and execution of high-quality, cross-cutting programs and she also leads efforts to ensure systematic institutional learning at R4D.
Dr. Jones is a published academic author and has written a book manuscript and journal articles on community-based health care delivery, including a 200-page sociological study of community-based care in Ghana.
Prior to joining R4D, Dr. Jones served as the president and founder of Aya Global, a philanthropic consulting practice, for seven years. In this role, she advised foundations and non-profit organizations in the global health and education fields on institutional strategy, program development and fundraising. She helped develop new portfolios for her clients, including a digital health practice and an early childhood education practice, in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
In previous roles, Dr. Jones led the Global Health portfolio at the Barr Foundation, and worked on programs that expanded access to primary health care at Pathfinder and Population Council. While working at Population Council, Dr. Jones was embedded within the Ghana Health Service/Ministry of Health to support the agency as it scaled-up the Community-Based Health and Planning Services (CHPS) model from a pilot project to robust initiatives in ten demonstration districts. Two decades later, CHPS is a global model for community-based service delivery and is at national scale in Ghana.
Dr. Jones holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, a master’s degree in public administration from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in American Studies and Africana Studies. In addition, she has held post-doctoral appointments at Dartmouth College and Harvard University. Dr. Jones serves on the Board of Directors of PRX, World Education and on the Advisory Board of Nurturing Minds.
Publications
Exemplars in Global Health, Gates Ventures (2020) ~ Community Health Workers in Ethiopia. Mengesah Admassu, Nan Chen, Luidina Hailu, Tanya Jones, Kyle Muther, Raj Panjabi, Matt Price in collaboration with the International Institute of Primary Healthcare-Ethiopia (IIfPHC-E)
Exemplars in Global Health, Gates Ventures (2020) ~ Community Health Workers in Brazil. Vera Joanna Bornstein, Carla Lopez, Castaneda, Nan Chen, Jacopo Gabani, Camila Giugliani, Tanya Jones, Carlile Lavor, Kyle Muther, Raj Panjabi, Matt Price in collaboration with the National School of Public Health – Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ)
Mwinnya, George, Tanya C. Jones, Patricia Antwi, Elizabeth Chan, James F. Phillips, John Koku Awoonor-Williams (2020). “Ghana’s Community Health Officers and Community Health Volunteers.” Pp 87- 102 in Health for the People: National Community Health Worker Programs from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Edited by Henry Perry. USAID.
Nyonator, Frank, Agyeman Badu Akosa, J. Koku Awoonor-Williams, James F. Phillips, Tanya C. Jones. (2007). “Scaling up experimental project success with the Community-based Health Planning and Services initiative in Ghana.” Pp 89- 112 in Scaling Up Health Service Delivery: From Pilot Innovations to Policies and Programmes. Edited by Ruth Simmons, Peter Fajans and Laura Ghiron. World Health Organization.
Phillips, James. F, Frank Nyonator, Tanya C. Jones and Shruti Ravikumar (2007). “Evidence-based scaling up of health and family planning service innovations in Bangladesh and Ghana.” Pp. 113-134 in Scaling Up Health Service Delivery: From Pilot Innovations to Policies and Programmes.” Edited by Ruth Simmons, Peter Fajans and Laura Ghiron. World Health Organization.
Nyonator, Frank, John Awoonor-Williams, James F. Phillips, Tanya C. Jones, Robert A. Miller. (2005). “The Ghana Community-based Health Planning and Services Initiative: Fostering Evidence-based Organizational Change and Development in a Resource Constrained Setting.” Health Policy and Planning, (20:1) 25-34.
Awoonor-Williams, John, Ellie Feinglass, Rachel Tobey, Maya Vaughn-Smith, Frank Nyonator and Tanya C. Jones. (2004). “Bridging the Gap between Evidence-based Innovation and National Health Sector Reform in Ghana.” Studies in Family Planning, 35(3) 161-177.
