Vincent Okungu serves as the Senior Health Financing Advisor, Public Affairs. He is a health economist with a track record in research and program implementation. He has served in various technical leadership roles to advise on, and produce policy documentation and presentations on health sector planning, and sustainable health financing. As a consultant, he has worked for various organizations including the World Health Organization, the UN Institute for Training and Research, USAID, the African Medical and Research Foundation, and World Vision. Throughout his career, he has engaged governments, and the private sector to communicate reform proposals, provide economic analysis and capture evidence to inform decision making on policies.
Some of his achievements include forecasting costs for national strategy deployment and finances for sustainable NCD-related public health interventions (UNITAR-Rwanda); introducing an evidence-based M&E framework for performance monitoring in primary health facilities in Kenya; improving the potential of domestic mobilization of resources and planning health expenditure using the cost model and sustainability plan (WHO-Rwanda); co-authored and produced a comprehensive international report on care quality improvements, policy reviews and evaluations (the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine);improved planning, budget allocation, execution and reporting through the design and implementation of program based forecasting in Kenya and Uganda (USAID).
Okungu is a member of the Panel of Experts at the National Institute for African Studies (UK), the Health Financing Technical Network (WHO), and the International Health Economics Association (iHEA). He has a PhD and MPH in Health Economics with emphasis in health financing from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.