Esubalew Demissie is a senior health financing technical advisor and certified data scientist with more than 30 years of experience advancing social and economic development in Ethiopia. He has held technical and advisory roles across government, international development agencies and NGOs, with a focus on health, finance and education.
As a fellow at Results for Development (R4D), Mr. Demissie brings strategic technical expertise in health financing, particularly in strategic purchasing, private sector engagement, health costing, mobilizing and optimizing domestic resources for sustainable health systems. His work supports efforts to expand fiscal space for health, strengthen health financing policy and governance, developing advocacy tools for increased health budgets, and generate operational evidence to inform reform. He plays a key role in facilitating dialogue between the Ethiopian Ministries of Health and Finance, and guiding the design and implementation of innovative financing strategies.
Prior to his fellowship, Mr. Demissie worked on the USAID Health Financing Improvement Program in Ethiopia, where R4D was a partner. He previously served as a senior advisor on two other USAID-funded health financing initiatives, ESHE II and HSFR, where he helped to develop legal frameworks, advocacy tools and policy guidelines — including Ethiopia’s hospital reform implementation guidance. As technical director for the FHE3 project, he played key role in strengthening primary health care (PHC) in Ethiopia’s underserved Developing Regional States (DRS) by driving system resilience, evidence-based policy, and efficiency reforms and co-led a national situational analysis of primary health care in pastoral and hard-to-reach areas.
Mr. Demissie’s research and insights have been featured at several global forums, including the International Conference on Global Health in Washington, D.C.; the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Beijing; and the World Congress on Public Health in Addis Ababa.
He holds a master’s degree in economics and a BA in economics from Addis Ababa University, as well as an MBA in health care services from Sikkim Manipal University of India. He is a native Amharic speaker and fluent in English. In 2013, he was co-awarded the Clark Abt Prize for outstanding social impact through his contributions to Ethiopia’s Health Sector Financing Reform Project.
