Our People
Ms Pamela Onyango has over 30 years experience and an extensive track record in public health work in the sub-Saharan Africa Region, with a focus on Sexual and Reproductive health and rights (SRHR), HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB, in both Anglophone and Francophone countries. Most recently, she spent nearly a decade growing the African Office of Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s (PPFA) comprehensive sexual and reproductive health advocacy and services for greater access by young people and vulnerable young women in Burkina Faso, Senegal, Kenya and Uganda.
However, her stint in the HIV arena has been the longest, starting with 5 years working with Family Health International (FHI) on their AIDSCAP project in Senegal, 5 years with the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in the UK, leading their programs in East and Southern Africa, 7 years at the Namibia Ministry of Health, managing the Namibian Global Fund programme, which remains her greatest and most successful experience in the area of public health, as in addition to HIV/AIDS it opened her up to the management of additional disease areas i.e. Malaria and Tuberculosis. It’s also of note that the Namibian Global Fund Program was touted as one of the most successful programs in Southern Africa.
In March 2005, she became part of a team recruited through a consortium consisting of KIT/Netherlands and a local Namibian consultancy firm, NEDICO, to set up a Program Management Unit (PMU) that would kick start the Ministry of Health’s HIV, Malaria and TB programs through an award by the Global Fund granted in 2002. As the Program Operations Manager at the PMU, she supported the relevant Ministry departments (Health and Education), civil society group (NANASO and Private Sector (NABCOA) to kick start what became known as the “Namibia Global Fund Program.” Working with the finance team, the M&E team, the local fund agent (Price Water House Coopers), she had the three programs running by the beginning of 2006. By this time, she had also supported the finance team to establish a specific procurement committee to be used by the PMU to undertake accelerated procurement for all the implementers, a task that would have been impossible for the existing MOH procurement committee. Also as the Programme’s Operations Manager, she had the responsibility of providing quarterly programme updates to the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) that consisted of representatives from key stakeholders – relevant government Ministries, civil society organizations, private sector and development partners – UNAIDS, WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF and CDC.
She has a masters degree in International Relations and law, from the Universite de Poitiers, in France and a bachelors in Law (LLB), from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. She is bilingual, with a great command in the French language which enabled her to work in several Francophone countries such as Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Cote d’Ivoire, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Senegal.
