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Health

Health and survival are the right of every child. We work to ensure that governments make the right decisions to guarantee the right to health and survival, and reduce inequalities.

The Sustainable Development Goals committed governments to ending preventable child deaths and building Universal Health Coverage so that no one is left behind.

Our team focuses on health system strengthening and ensuring strong primary health care policies which determine whether essential maternal and child health services are accessible to the poorest and most excluded communities around the world.

Our areas of focus include immunisation, women’s and children’s health such as pneumonia, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and issues of access to quality primary and community-based health care with fair access to commodities and services. 

Our policy and advocacy work also includes a focus on adequate health financing for the meaningful implementation of health policies; and ensuring social participation within health governance processes both at the global and country levels.

Our priorities

  • Promote Universal Health Coverage, primary healthcare and the right to health
  • Ensure public financing for healthcare
  • Influence donors to provide sufficient support, in the required manner
  • Guarantee fair access to commodities such as vaccines
  • Participate, and advocate for civil society engagement in, global processes such as the World Health Assembly, the Partnership for Maternal Newborn & Child Health, COVAX and ACT-A, the World Bank, Gavi and the UHC2030
  • Promote social participation and accountability within health planning and budgeting processes and to improve health governance
  • Support partners to influence governments across the world, and hold them accountable on their commitments to the right to health. 

Our Key Reports

Read the latest blogs on health

Our Experts

Tara Brace-John

Tara Brace-John

Head of Health
t.brace-john@savethechildren.org.uk
@tarabracejohn

Tara has worked with Save the Children since 2011 and heads a team of highly skilled specialists who are a force to reckon with. She is a primary health care specialist who leads our work on health governance and social accountability for UHC at the global level. Prior to joining Save the Children, she worked on governance and inclusion issues with One World Action and Dalit Solidarity Network UK, and for 14 years in southern India with the Dalit community at the grassroots level on issues of economic, social, and political exclusion, and their impact on the lives and health of Dalit women, children, and youth. 

Karrar Karrar

Karrar Karrar

Access to Medicines Advisor
k.karrar@savethechildren.org.uk
@KKarrar0

Karrar leads our pharmaceutical policy workstream. This portfolio of work covers both access to medicines policy work as well as the routine immunisation workstream. He is a member of the GAVI CSO Steering Committee and is also an ACT-A CSO representative on the COVAX pillar. Prior to joining Save the Children UK, he was a researcher at the Access to Medicine Foundation in the Netherlands working on the 2018 ‘Access to Medicines Index’ and the ‘Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark’. He is a pharmacist by training and worked previously as a clinical Pharmacist covering different therapeutic areas in the NHS. 

Elo Otobo

Elo Otobo

Senior Policy Advisor
e.otobo@savethechildren.org.uk
@elosfeed

Elo leads our portfolio on Women, Child, and Adolescent Health (WCAH) and Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). She is also the technical lead for global health partnerships.  She currently represents Save the Children on PMNCH’s Strategic Advocacy Committee, the UK SRHR Network, and co-chairs the UK Maternal and Newborn Health Working Group. Previously, she has driven programmes in Madagascar, Sierra Leone and Ghana improving direct health service delivery to pregnant women and adolescent girls. She has considerable experience in maternal service delivery and access to SRHR and family planning for adolescents and youth.

Nidda Yusuf

Nidda Yusuf

Advisor: Health Financing & UHC
n.yusuf@savethechildren.org.uk
@niddayusuf

Nidda leads our health financing for UHC workstream. Her portfolio of work spans financing for primary health care (PHC), and reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child, & adolescent health (RMNCAH). She currently chairs the Global Financing Facility's (GFF) Civil Society Health Financing Working Group and leads on all our GFF engagement. Prior to this, as a Health Specialist in Mott MacDonald's Global Health portfolio, she drove technical excellence in health financing & economics, evaluations, using data for decision making and digital health. She has extensive experience working across Asia and Africa to improve global health outcomes. 

Milca Agbenou

Milca Agbenou

Advisor: PHC & Country Influencing
m.agbenou@savethechildren.org
@MilcaAgbenou

Milca leads our primary health care (PHC) work at the country level. She works closely with our country offices to enable local to global policy advocacy, and currently drives our efforts to engage civil society in global accountability mechanisms including the Voluntary National Review, Universal Health Periodic Review, and Universal Periodic Review. Prior to joining Save the Children UK, she was the Project Manager in the Medical Team at Save the Children International, leading the global roll out of their ‘Patient Safety Quality Framework’, and driving their efforts at strengthening ‘Medical Services Risk and Incident Management’ in humanitarian and developmental contexts. 

Dylan Bruce

Dylan Bruce

Advisor: UK Influencing & Climate Change
d.bruce@savethechildren.org.uk
@dylansbruce_ 

Dylan coordinates our relationship with the UK government, Parliamentarians, and relevant bureaucrats within the various Ministries across Whitehall. He also leads our work on the intersection between climate change and health.  He holds the relationship with the Action for Global Health, our strategic policy advocacy partner in the UK. Prior to joining the sector, he was in the UK civil service at the Department of Exiting the EU and supported the development of new trade agreements at the Department of International Trade. During the pandemic, he was in the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce and led the development of multilateral and global access policy.

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