India

Rebecca Furth, Ph.D., Senior Technical Advisor

Rebecca Furth is a Senior Technical Advisor with Initiatives, providing technical support in human resources management, research, quality and performance improvement, organizational capacity building, and training for national health systems, NGOs and targeted HIV/AIDS and reproductive health programs. She has served as Task Manager and Principal Investigator for the Rwanda Human Resources Assessment for HIV/AIDS Services Scale-up conducted under Initiatives' sub-contract on QAP. She also directed the Zambia Performance-based Incentives Study and is the Task Manager for Initiatives' contribution to the HR component of the Ghana Quality Health Partnerships Project. Dr. Furth also provides technical assistance in performance improvement to Initiatives' staff in Ethiopia under the ESHE project and to staff in Zambia with the SHARe Project.

Prior to these activities, Dr. Furth worked with staff in the Zambia Integrated Health Programme (ZIHP) to implement a participatory quality improvement process with local NGOs and CBOs. Dr. Furth is a cultural anthropologist and trained VCT counselor. She speaks fluent French and Pular and has worked in Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guyana, Jordan, Rwanda, Senegal, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Amit Paliwal, Senior Technical Specialist – Human Resources for Health (HRH)

As a Senior Technical Specialist for the USAID-funded India TB Project Amit Paliwal brings more than 12 years experience working with the Indian healthcare system in the areas of quality management and human resources for health. He has a master’s degree of Philosophy in Health Systems Management.

In his current assignment, he leads Initiatives’ support to the Indian Central TB Division and Revised National TB Program (RNTCP). He currently leads a study aimed at identifying opportunities and constraints for further integration of RNTCP with the general health system and assessing the human resources implications of universal access to TB service delivery. Following this study, Amit will be assisting RNTCP to pilot integrated management models and strengthen select human resources management systems in two to five districts in India. The pilot will inform the broader scale-up of integration and human resources management strengthening in the RNTCP program.