Alliance appoints new directors
08 December 2005
The appointment of new directors to lead the International HIV/AIDS Alliance’s three new secretariat departments has now been completed. The new structure is a result of wider organisational changes which are aimed at enhancing the Alliance’s programme quality and policy influence.
“I am delighted that our newly established Policy and Technical Support departments at the Alliance will be led by Abdelkader Bacha and Fareed Abdullah respectively”, said Dr Alvaro Bermejo, the Alliance’s executive director.
Bacha is Tunisian and has been living in Senegal for the last 15 years. In Dakar he has worked for ENDA, and was our counterpart when they hosted ANCS in the early days. Since then he has also done consulting work for the Alliance and many other organisations involved in the HIV/AIDS response, and has been the secretary general of the African Council of AIDS Service Organisations (AFRICASO). “Bacha brings a wealth of national policy experience to this new post and we are very excited to have him joining us,” said Dr Bermejo.
“The creation of a new policy directorate reflects a commitment to enhance the policy influence and impact of our partners nationally and regionally and of the Alliance as a whole on the international stage.
“Similarly, the new technical support directorate is part of our efforts to secure the quality and timeliness of the technical assistance provided by the Alliance to our partners. I am confident that Fareed Abdullah, the Technical Support Department’s new director will do exactly that.”
Fareed has worked for the last ten years in the Western Cape Department of Health, in South Africa, where as deputy director general he managed a large programme that has helped reduce mother-to-child transmission in the province. He has also managed an anti-retroviral treatment programme that, with support from a Global Fund grant has reached over 60% of people living with HIV in need of treatment, surpassing the WHO’s 3 x 5 goals!
“I believe that his experience of implementing these programmes and his understanding of what it takes for governments to bring HIV responses to scale, will be great assets for the Alliance,” said Dr Bermejo.
The senior management team also includes a new post of associate director: programmes who will have responsibility for leading organisation-wide efforts to strengthen the overall learning and capacity of Alliance country offices, linking organisations and the secretariat. This new position will also be responsible for improving links between field programme and monitoring, research and evaluation work.
Sam McPherson, previously the head of research and evaluation at the Alliance, has been appointed to this post. “Having worked with Sam I know that his technical knowledge, strong management skills and Alliance knowledge will be great assets for the senior management team,” said Dr Bermejo.
The Alliance is currently recruiting for a new director of field programmes to replace the current director, Jerker Edstrom, who is leaving the Alliance at the end of the year. The appointment of the new field programmes director will complete the new senior management team at the Alliance.
“When I announced the results of the organisational review earlier this year I said that all of the changes we agreed to implement were directed at improving the work we do with our partners in developing countries. That was and always will be the test of our organisational structure and processes,” said Dr Bermejo. “The new staff who we have recruited to lead them will make an important contribution to the Alliance’s capacity to take the community response to HIV/AIDS in the developing world to scale.”
