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@ucglobalprograms.org
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
In this role, Julie Neidel works closely with the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) in coordination of national quality management (QM) initiatives specifically overseeing implementation and management of quality improvement (QI) Collaboratives for the HIV programme. She has expertise in continuous quality Improvement methodologies, change leadership, coaching and mentorship, adult learning and training methodologies, and communication and knowledge management. She is a member and Fellow of the International Society for Quality in healthcare (ISQua)
Julie has over 30 years’ experience in the healthcare industry. Prior to this role, she worked as senior disease management Advisor at MetHealth Namibia Administrators, and Senior Programme Officer for special programmes in MoHSS, Otjozondjupa region.
Julie holds an MBA in Quality Systems, Healthcare and Hospital Management from the National Institute of Business Management in India, a Postgraduate Certificate in Change leadership from the University of the West of England, Bristol, a Bachelor of Administration from the University of South Africa, and a Diploma in Nursing - Midwifery, Community and Psychiatry - from the University of Namibia.
Country Technical Advisor
fekir.negussie@ucsf.edu
Fekir Negussie oversees the successful implementation of projects under the NAMTAC and TRACE CDC Co-Ag awards including the Urine Tenofovir Point of Care Evaluation, Health Information Systems and HIV Recency Surveillance projects. She is also supporting the planning and implementation of the COVID-19 Rapid Household Assessment in Angola. Prior to her current role, Fekir supported PEPFAR programming at CDC Mozambique as a Strategic Information Fellow. She is experienced in quantitative and qualitative research, project management and capacity building. She received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Health degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Regional Laboratory Officer
elizabeth.kanyanga@ucglobalprograms.org
As a Recency Regional Laboratory officer, Elizabeth Kanyanga is responsible for supporting the regional and district level laboratory activities for the HIV Recency study. This includes the coordination of recency rollout, initial and refresher trainings, and supervision visits to health facilities.
Prior to this position, she worked as a Medical Technologist at Namibia Institute of Pathology for 6 years. Elizabeth has a Bachelor's degree in Bio-Medical Sciences
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.
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.
Recency Data Manager
sam.naholo@ucglobalprograms.org
Sam's worked for Project Hope for four years and his main duties were: Development of the DREAMS BI solutions, DHIS2 form and indicator development, paper and electronic tools for district data management officers. USAID reporting. Database management. Statistical data analysis Development and monitoring of multi-level dashboards.
He also worked for CDC/MoHSS for four years and he was responsible for: Overseeing the development and management of the national patient level systems and databases for the HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria programs. National TB / HIV Data warehouse management. Including the national DHIS2 system, ePMS, EDT to mention a few. National data reporting of HIV indicators.
Sam worked for Intrahealth and his main duties included: Requirements Gathering, Dashboard Development. Business Process Modelling, Configuration and Development, Testing, Training, Data Management, Server Management, Project Management. Web development.
Sam is a holder of a Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering from Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST).
Junior Software Developer
Collin Jehonia Nehemia joined Global Programs in September 2021, in the position of Junior Software Developer. His main roles include assisting in developing informatics solutions to support critical public health strategic information needs in Namibia, with a focus on OpenMRS. He also supports NAMTAC with its data needs by developing databases, dashboards, apps, and other software to support and meet the needs of specific programs. Additionally, Collin supports the department with more straightforward continued development, improving P-Tracker user interfaces, developing basic reports and dashboards, and achieving interoperability between P-Tracker and DHIS and NIP system. Collin holds a Bachelor’s degree in Software Development from Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and he is currently pursuing his Bachelor's Honours in Computer Science(Software Development) at the Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST).
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 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.
Regional CQI Officer
sarafina.muyamba@ucglobalprograms.org
Sarafina T. Muyamba joined Global Programs in 2021 as a Regional Continuous Quality Improvement Officer for TDF POC Study in Ohangwena, Kavango and Zambezi Region. Her main roles include coordinating and conducting routine support supervision visits to facilities, Address Data Quality issues, Implement Quality Improvement interventions for the study and collaborate with Regional, Districts, Facility staffs and partners to implement, monitor the progress of the study implementation and strengthen the use of available protocols and Standard Operating Procedures.
She has previously worked for IntraHealth International as a Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer for the USAID HIV Technical Assistance Project (UTAP). She has also worked as Project Officer for Positive Vibes Trust whereby; she was coordinating a project for ALHIV (Adolescents Living with HIV) Teen Clubs. She has more than 6 years’ experience in Monitoring and Evaluation.
In Addition, she acquired certificates in “Monitoring and Evaluation in Global Health” and “Leadership and Management in Health” through the University of Washington. She is currently perusing her Honours in Bachelor of Education with the University of Namibia.
HIS Monitoring & Evaluation Technical Advisor
Rosamunde Amutenya, is the M&E Technical Advisor for the HIS project. Her role is to support programs to ensure the quality of in-country HIS datasets (public/programmatic/survey) are suitable for purposes of supporting the outcomes of the eHealth strategy and inform integrated public health responses informed by this data. She leads monitoring and evaluation activities for various HIS work streams, including but not limited to PTracker, COVID19 seroprevalence study, Urine TDF evaluation, and MPI/UPID.
Prior to joining UCSF, she worked as the Senior M&E Specialist (2018-2021) for the DREAMS HIV prevention project, under IntraHealth Namibia. She was responsible for setting up the M&E System, coordinating of all M&E activities, report compilation and data analysis/sharing with stakeholders and management as well as for technical advice related to M&E. She has also worked as an M&E Officer for the TB programme under the MoHSS/DSP (2012-2018). She is a holder of a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in Population Stuides and Geography, from the University of Namibia.