Rachel Neill

Rachel Neill is a health systems strengthening and monitoring and evaluation professional. Her work aims to bridge the gap between innovative measurement approaches, rigorous mixed methods, and policy-relevant implementation to increase evidence-informed decision-making.

Dr. Neill is a Program Director for the Frequent Assessments and Health Systems Tools for Resilience (FASTR) program at R4D. Housed within the Global Financing Facility for Women, Children, and Adolescent (GFF), the FASTR rapid-cycle analytics and data use initiative supports country-led efforts to improve the timely use of data for decision making ultimately leading to stronger primary healthcare systems and better reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition outcomes. Dr. Neill is also seconded to the GFF Secretariat and works across both organizations to lead FASTR’s technical assistance support in over twelve countries.

Throughout her career, Dr. Neill has focused on health systems strengthening with particular attention to primary health care, health systems measurement, and health systems resilience. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she served as a consultant supporting the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, established by the World Health Organization Director-General per World Health Assembly resolution 73.1 to conduct an independent review of the global COVID-19 response. She also supported the Monitoring of Essential Health Services (mEHS) initiative at the GFF and the World Bank, which generated timely evidence on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on essential health services for Ministry of Health across Africa and Asia and which led to the development of the FASTR initiative.

Dr. Neill was previously a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she led an action-oriented research portfolio on integrated care, health systems resilience, injuries and rehabilitation. She maintains an associate appointment in the international health department. Rachel was also previously a senior program officer at R4D, where she worked on a variety of health systems and financing projects in Africa and Asia. In particular, Dr. Neill spent several years supporting the start-up of Nigeria’s Basic Healthcare Provision Fund at the federal and state levels under the Nigeria Health Financing Improvement Project. She also consulted for the Global Fund for HIV, TB, and Malaria, the World Bank Group, UNICEF, John Snow, Inc. and other global health organizations.

Dr. Neill holds a PhD in Health Systems from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, with specialization in the monitoring and evaluation of international health programs and health economics, and an MA degree in African studies from Stanford University.