Allison Kelley

Universal health coverage is a long process that must be country-driven. The key to success is first to listen to country challenges and priorities, then to support them to make real progress. This means moving beyond technical approaches to a more inclusive, facilitated process at the national level.”

Allison Kelley is a health economist with 20 years of experience managing and providing technical assistance and training for international development initiatives and health research. She is a leading expert and advocate for collaborative, peer-to-peer models for sharing and co-producing global health knowledge especially in pursuit of universal health coverage.

At Results for Development (R4D), Ms. Kelley is the senior program director for the African Collaborative for Health Financing Solutions project, working to advance universal health coverage in sub-Saharan Africa by engaging regional and country-level stakeholders on health financing policies and processes.

Before joining R4D, Ms. Kelley provided strategic guidance and targeted technical assistance to agencies and African governments on health financing strategies, universal health coverage, health systems strengthening and building public-private linkages. Based in France since 2006, she has worked with senior levels of local and national governments and with major international organizations including WHO, USAID, UNICEF, the European Union, the International Labor Organization and the World Bank, as well as European academic institutes. Ms. Kelley also managed Abt Associate’s extensive portfolio of projects in West Africa, and carried out numerous research and technical initiatives as well as trainings at both the policy and primary care levels.

Ms. Kelley is responsible for helping to establish several platforms that have offered African global health experts a stronger voice, especially regarding equitable health financing, the Ministerial Leadership Initiative, the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage, Health Harmonization of Africa (HHA) Communities of Practice and the Health Financing in Africa blog. Through her leadership and facilitation of the HHA Communities of Practice, membership grew to more than 7,000 experts from across the continent who continuously share experiences and collaboratively produce knowledge to improve health systems performance and financing throughout Africa.

Ms. Kelley holds an MA in international economics and African studies from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. She is a skilled facilitator, and is fluent in French and English.