Our Namibia office in Windhoek employs individuals with expertise in health information systems, monitoring and evaluation, surveillance and business development.
Administration and FInance Assistant
kornelia.penda@ucglobalprograms.org
Penda assists the finance and administration department and ensures the office is environmentally friendly. She previously worked for Regus Business Centre as an office assistant.
Director of Finance and Operations
priscilla.mudzingwa@ucglobalprograms.org
Priscilla Mudzingwa is responsible for overseeing the management of human resources, finance, administration and logistics for all programs and projects.
She previously worked for ITECH Namibia as Director of Finance and for SASCCAL Regional Secretariat as Director Finance and Administration and has seven years’ experience in leadership positions. She has vast experience in finance - budgets, forecasting, cashflow, tax, reporting, day to day finance; human resources covering recruitment and selection, onboarding, training and development, performance appraisal, grading and employee exit; operations - policies and procedures development, office administration, procurement, logistics (vehicles and warehouse management) and asset management.
Priscilla is a Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA) and has a Bachelor of Science in Applied Accounting from Oxford Brookes University, an MBA in Strategic Planning from Herriot Watt University. She is working part-time on a law degree (LLB) at Free State University in South Africa.
Project Support Manager
esme.kisting@ucglobalprograms.org
Esme Kisting provides administrative support to all projects and performs procurement and logistics duties at Global Programs Namibia office.
She worked previously at FNB for 16 years as the administration department manager and at MoHSS/CDC COAG programs from 2010 to 2016 before joining Global Programs.
Kisting has completed Grade 12 at Dr Lemmer High School, Rehoboth, Namibia.
Finance and Administration Officer
Melissa Muuondjo offers financial and administrative support for all programs and projects.
She has over 5 years experience of accounting and administration in donor funded projects.Prior to this role she worked as a finance assistant at Walvis Bay Corridor Group (WBCG),bookkeeper at ATA International Training Namibia and Finance Intern at Namibia Planned Parenthood Association (NAPPA)
Melissa has a Bachelor of Accounting Honours degree from the University of Namibia.
HIS Project Support Officer
Cherizaan Willemse joined Global Programs in January 2021 as the HIS Project Support Officer. Her main role is to provide logistics and administration support to the project and working collaboratively with the technical team as well as the finance and operations team.
Cherizaan has over 8 years all-round progressive experience in supporting the successful implementation of multiple projects, with wide knowledge and expertise working with HIV programming for the United States Government (USG) funded projects especially in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) specifically with the Directorate of Special Programs (DSP). Mrs. Willemse has expertise in supporting partner organizations to conduct organizational capacity
assessments; building their capacity for developing systems and structures; creation of successful visibility and accountability; resource mobilization and; improved leadership and management. Additionally, she is well conversant with implementing systems for tracking and reporting, as well as facilitating various coordination, communication and partnership platforms. She is skilled in developing communication products, documenting successful strategies, lessons learned and best practices.
Furthermore, she has supported the successful establishment of new project offices and sites in several countries in Southern Africa.
Cherizaan holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications Degree from the University of Science and Technology.
Quality Program Manager
julie.neidel@ucglobalprograms.org
Neidel is a registered nurse by profession, soon completing her master’s in business management in quality systems, healthcare and hospital management. She has vast experience in management of health programs, continuous quality management of healthcare services, organizational capacity development, communication and knowledge management. Her current work entails supporting the national quality management program at the Namibia Ministry of Health and Social Services in coordinating quality management initiatives at all levels of healthcare. Neidel is a member and fellow of the International Society for Quality in healthcare (ISQua).
Recency Study Coordinator
ndeshi.conteh@ucglobalprograms.org
Ndeshi joined Global Programs in February 2020 as Study Coordinator for the Recency study in Namibia. Her main role is to coordinate the recency surveillance study which will guide the HIV prevention efforts in Namibia as well as inform the scale up of HIV recency testing nationally.
Ndeshi previously worked for Tufts School of Medicine as a Project Coordinator of two projects that were implemented by the MOHSS Namibia and CDC. She also previously worked for Management Sciences for Health (MSH) as a Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor for the BLC Project. Ndeshi has a solid background in the coordination and management of health programs, with a strong emphasis on monitoring and evaluation (M&E), reporting, research, training and quality assurance.
Ndeshi is pursuing a PHD of Public Health with the University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. She holds a Nursing and Midwifery Science Degree from the University of Namibia, a Post graduate Diploma in HIV and AIDS Management from the University of Stellenbosch and a Master of Public Health from the University of Namibia.
Country Technical Advisor
fekir.negussie@ucsf.edu
Fekir Negussie, in her capacity as Technical Advisor, works to ensure the successful implementation of projects including COVID-19 seroprevalence survey, Urine Tenofavir Point of Care evaluation, HIV recency testing as well as Health Informatics Systems projects. Prior to her current role, Fekir supported PEPFAR programming with CDC Mozambique where she focused on increased data use for program improvement. She has extensive experience working in multi-stakeholder projects and in research design, implementation, and data analysis. She received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Health degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
HIS Software Developer
asen.mwandemele@ucglobalprograms.org
Asen Mwandemele is a Health Information Systems (HIS) Software Developer. He is a member of the UCSF Global Health Informatics Hub and has a Computer Science background from the University of Namibia. Focusing on programming data collection tools and analytics in global health, Asen has worked on online, offline and hybrid data collection and analysis tools for HIV and Malaria projects in Namibia, Swaziland, Malawi, Tanzania, Thailand and Indonesia. In Namibia, he works closely with the IT and Health Information Systems (HIS) team at the Ministry of Health & Social Services. His competencies are in data collection and analysis, server setup and maintenance, cloud technologies, web services, and mobile application development.
HIS Coordinator
rosaline.hendricks@ucglobalprograms.org
Rosaline joined Global Programs in 2020 as HIS Project Coordinator and is responsible for coordinating all HIS activities in Namibia on behalf of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), through our local affiliate, Global Programs for Research and Training (GPRT) Namibia. The main projects currently include a system to track women across the PMTCT cascade (PTracker), a system to identify and link individuals through a Master Patient Index (MPI) across the care and treatment cascade, and a system to track implementation and results from the HIV Recency testing programme.
Prior to this role, she worked in international development implementing and scaling digital health systems in Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, and South Africa. Specific responsibilities included strengthening patient level systems to support the clinical cascades for HIV/AIDS treatment, increasing the availability of Human Resources for Health (HRH) data to ensure quality data is available and used at sub-national and national level.
Rosaline has a bachelor’s degree in Commerce with specialization in Informatics and is currently completing an online master’s degree in Business Administration with the University of Nicosia.
Data Manager
Vincent.Shikomba@ucglobalprograms.org
Vincent Shikomba joined Global Programs in April 2020. He holds the position of Data Manager. His main roles include maintaining the in-country database for all datasets from recency activities, as well as related datasets for purposes of crafting integrated public health responses informed by this data. He is responsible for developing SOPs for storing and retrieving data, data quality analysis, and correcting data using approved methods.
Prior to joining the team, Vincent was a Software Developer for the Capricorn Investment Group, where he developed software for their banking entities in Namibia (Bank Windhoek) and Botswana (Bank Gaborone). Vincent has done software development in the banking industry for five years.
Vincent holds a Bachelors Degree in Information Technology: Software Engineering from the Namibia University of Science and Technology. She also holds a Nation Diploma in Information Technology.
Junior HIS Officer
justina.shakaalela@ucglobalprograms.org
Justina joined Global Programs in November 2019 as an Intern on the Recency project. Her role was to support all aspects of collection, analysis and visualization of Recency data. She supported data quality by working closely with the team to address censored data, data completeness and accuracy. Her current role is to work regularly with health facilities to identify and troubleshoot problems arising during the course of data collection and transmission to the server, technical documentation which invades maintenance and understanding of all SQL based documentations as well as data monitoring. She was formally employed in the position of Junior HIS Officer on the 1st of May 2020.
Prior to this role, Justina worked a Health Information System intern at the Ministry of Health and Social Services at the Directorate of Health Information and Research department, where she was responsible for highlighting data quality issues and provide feedback to the regions as well as attending to data requests from different data users using DHIS 2 web- based system and code for cause of death using ICD 10 and 11 coding tools.
Justina holds a Bachelor’s degree in Health Information Systems Management from the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST).
NAMTAC Project Coordinator
Ntombi joined Global Programs on 11th January 2021. Her main role is to coordinate the Covid-19 Sero prevalence study as well as the TDF POC study. She has vast experience in capacity building of team members and partner organizations while supporting MoHSS activities.
Ntombi previously served as a Regional Team Lead for Strengthening HIV prevention among Key Populations project in Erongo region under USAID as well as Global Fund regions, with Society for Family Health (SFH). She was instrumental in piloting the validation of HIV-Self Test Kit (Ora-Quick) in Erongo region. Additionally she coordinated the Venue Based Risk Assessment under Society for Family Health in 2017.
She has over 10 years’ experience in HIV prevention programming for most at risk populations, and supported the UNAIDS Fast Tract Projects in Walvis Bay, Swakopmund and Oranjemund municipalities under SFH. Ntombi is a holder of Honors Degree in Nursing Sciences with a specialty in Nursing Education from Zimbabwe Open University and a Master’s in Public Health from University of Roehampton, London.
Continuous Quality Improvement Advisor
praise.zimunya@ucglobalprograms.org
Praise joined Global Programs in 2016 working as an M&E Data Analyst. Her previous and current roles are focused on Research Monitoring and Evaluation, data quality control procedures, reporting, monitoring and evaluation for quality improvement, providing support for improvement strategies for data collection, development of training materials, SOP’s and manuals, providing support and ongoing capacity building for health workers on HIV and PMTCT Programs.
Prior to this role, she worked in monitoring, evaluation and reporting roles on health and nutrition and malaria programs with UMCOR in Zimbabwe.
Praise has a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences with Africa University, Zimbabwe and is currently studying for a master’s degree in International Development Studies with the University of Birmingham, UK.
Regional Continuous Quality Improvement Officer
Sophia Precious Chirodzero joined Global Programs in October 2019, and she holds the position of Recency Continuous Quality Improvement officer for Oshana Region. Her main role includes working closely with Ministry of Health and Social Services (MOHSS)HIV Testing (HTS)Department to Coordinate quality improvement activities to implementing sites. Making sure that they make use of the standard operating manual and the job aids.
Prior to this position, she worked at Makumbe District Hospital as a junior Registered Nurse. Then 2009 started working in Namibia as an ART Nurse for CDC and MOHSS. Worked with the District and Regional office in training Health workers on HIV related issues: PMTCT, Disclosure, Nurse Initiated Antiretroviral Treatment and Management as well as a focal person for the teen club for HIV infected adolescents and quality improvement projects: HIVQUAL and NAMLIVE (Namibia Linkage to care, viral load monitoring & suppression and End TB) Projects.
Sophia holds a Diploma in General Nursing obtained at Harare Central Hospital School of Nursing. Diploma in Mental Health Nursing obtained at Ingutsheni Mental Health School. Certificate in HIV Management University of South Africa. Clinical HIV Management, Leadership and Management in Health, STI Management, Project Management all Certificates awarded by University of Washington. Currently studying for Bachelor of Nursing Science Health Service Management and Education.
Regional Continuous Quality Improvement Officer
Rina Mutalipula Siyengwa joined Global Programs in October 2019. She holds the position of Regional Continuous Improvement Officer for Recency in Zambezi Region. Her main roles include conducting and coordinating routine visits to facilities to provide supportive supervision and quality monitoring, and collect data on the implementation of recency project activities. Review documentation at facilities to identify any challenges with the procedures or adverse situations and collaborate with facility staff to plan, implement, and monitor action plans, in order to improve project activities and enhance service delivery.
Prior to this position, she worked as Research and Surveillance Officer at the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Directorate Special Program (Subdivision Response Monitoring and Evaluation). Supporting the national development and implementation of research and surveillance activities on HIV/AIDS/TB and Malaria. She also worked as an Early Stage Researcher at the University of York (United Kingdom) in the Department of Sociology under Science and Technology Research. Generally, she has more than 6 years’ experience working in the field of research.
Rina holds a Master Degree in Social Change and Development (Sustainable Development) from the University of Newcastle which was funded by the Australian Government under Australian Awards in Africa. She also holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Molecular & Physiological Biology and Environmental Biology.