Amanda Banda is a scholar with the Center for Global Health Policy & Politics.
She is a global health politics and policy analyst, strategist, advocate, and advisor. For the past 16 years, she has worked across Sub-Saharan Africa, the Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Latin America on infectious diseases, health systems and financing, human resources for health, intersectional sexual and reproductive health and rights, and pandemic response preparedness governance. She has supported clinicians, civil society organizations, affected communities, and governments in understanding and navigating the power and politics of global health decision making at the national, regional, and global levels. Her work has analyzed and impactfully influenced funding and policy decisions of major global health institutions, donors, the private sector, pharmaceutical companies, and more to secure access to quality public health care services, tools, diagnostics, and therapies for countries and populations.
Prior to joining O’Neill, Banda worked as an independent consultant on several diverse portfolios and assignments. She has worked with the Global Fund, supporting the communities and key and vulnerable populations program to generate and use existing data to inform their engagement with Global Funds decision-making processes. At Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), she worked in multiple positions, including infectious diseases and policy advisor, interim TB policy advisor for the Geneva-based MSF Access Campaign, and advocacy manager; for over five years, she coordinated HIV and TB advocacy for the Africa region, largely working in and supporting work in Sub-Saharan African countries. She also supported MSF’s clinicians and projects in using evidence and data to influence key policy decisions, models of care at all levels, and global health policy and funding initiatives. At Wemos, Banda supported the human resources for health, health systems, finance, intersectional sexual and reproductive health and rights, and global health governance — particularly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. At AVAC, she co-led and served as a strategic advisor for a Global North-South civil society coalition, where she informed governments, donor policy and investment decisions, and the private sector’s access to health products in selected African countries.
Banda sits on many global and regional advisory boards and technical working groups. She has academic backgrounds in International Relations (Hons), Political Studies (M.A.) Humanitarian Policy and Practice and Global Health Policy, and is currently studying for an MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership at Saïd Business School, Oxford University.
