Watipa’s work and strategy is guided by an terrific and inter-disciplinary group of advisors. We are grateful for the expertise of a diverse group of advisors from around the world, who kindly share their ideas voluntarily to help Watipa grow from strength to strength.
Meet Watipa’s Advisors:
Georgina Caswell is Regional Technical Advisor at the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. Prior to joining the Alliance, Ms. Caswell worked with several community-based organizations to support people living with HIV and their communities on HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights. As the program manager for the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+), Ms. Caswell supported networks of people living with HIV to share experiences and build their skills to access prevention and treatment resources and services. Ms. Caswell was born in Ghana and currently resides in South Africa. She studied at the Institute of Political Studies in Bordeaux and holds a bachelor’s degree in politics and French from the University of Warwick and a master’s degree in development studies from the University of Manchester.
Rima Afifi is Professor and Associate Dean, Health Promotion and Community Health, in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the American University of Beirut. Her expertise centres in the evaluation of health programs, trainings in health promotion, youth issues, tobacco control, community based participatory research (CBPR), and the development of strategic plans for health promotion. Her research interests span tobacco prevention and control, youth health promotion, community based partnerships and intervention, and programme evaluation.
Sakhile Sifelani-Ngoma is the Executive Director of the Women in Politics Support Unit (WiPSU) in Zimbabwe. WiPSU continues to provide support to women in parliament, local government and political spaces in Zimbabwe aiming to increase women’s qualitative and quantitative participation and influence in policy and decision making.
Swatee Deepak is Indian and British with a career straddling policy, business development and implementation of programmes within multilaterals, bilaterals, international agencies and donor agencies. She is passionate about development with specialist experience working in health, human rights and gender empowerment. Swatee also co-founded a social enterprise which runs music, arts and cultural events in the UK and Worldwide, a record label and a glamping business.
Wangari Muikia is the Managing Director and Principal Consultant with Expertise Global Consulting. Wangari has worked in senior positions for, amongst others, the National Treasury in Kenya, The World Bank in Washington DC, and Dalberg Global Advisors in New York, Switzerland, Tanzania and Kenya. She has undertaken several projects for USAID, DANIDA, DFID and the Global Fund and advised on several other government projects. She has led projects on subnational revenue enhancement in Kenya, worked in the grassroots to enhance access to finance for women’s groups in Dakar Senegal, conducted conferences and workshops for the Global Fund on the eradication of malaria, and helped restructure the UN organizaiton in Tanzania. In her approach, Wangari believes that successful engagements should be technically correct, politically acceptable and administratively feasible. Wangari has a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Oklahoma, and Master of Public Administration from Harvard University.