Community Health Action

for the Humanitarian-

Development Nexus

JUNE 4-7, 2018 | BETHESDA, MD

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to our volunteers (Givan Hinds, Abel H Alvarez, Kris Panico,
Halkeno Tura, Joshua Andi Emmanuel, Jianyi Nie, Meritt Buyer, Emily Hejna,
Meredith Kruse, and Elijah Olivas); the technical review committee (Lara Ho,
IRC; Asma Quereshi, Independent; Ilya Plotkin, Independent; Karen Kwok,
Independent; Alfonso Rosales, World Vision; Eric Sarriot, Save the Children;
Gwyneth Coates, JSI; Jennifer Burns, Catholic Relief Services; Kathryn Reider,
World Vision; Cindy Uttley, Samaritan’s Purse; Corinne Mazzeo, USAID’s
Maternal and Child Survival Program; Mychelle Farmer, Advancing Synergy;
Catherine Lane, Pathfinder; Debora Freitas, Chemonics International; Erin
Pfeiffer, Food for the Hungry; and Joseph Petraglia, Syntegral); Mohini Malhotra:
Conference Facilitator; CORE Group Staff; CORE Group Board of Directors;
Humanitarian Development Task Force co-chairs Emily Chambers Sharpe,
Medair and Jesse Hartness, Save the Children); and working group chairs.

THANK YOU
Mary Hennigan, CRS, served 9 years on the CORE
Group Board of Directors, and is stepping down
after finishing her last term. We are thankful to
Mary for the many years of service and leadership
she provided to CORE Group.

2 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference

The conference brought together

284
participants from over

representing 18 countries
103
organizations and 10
Universities

An additional 42 remote
participants from around the world
joined in the live broadcasts of the
keynote and plenaries.

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 3

CORE Group Executive Director Lisa Hilmi opened the conference and
highlighted the objectives for the week. This year’s Global Health
Practitioner Conference focused on navigating the humanitarian-
development nexus through community health action. The conference
aspired that by its end, participants will have contributed to and gained:

Greater understanding of why a humanitarian and development

approach is important to achieving our vision of global community
health for all;

New ideas and actions on how to advance evidence-based policies,

strategies, partnerships, and practices in a complex and fluid area;

New partnerships for future collaborations to advance humanitarian

and development approaches; and

Awareness of the relevant programmatic and research questions

driving this work and identify the remaining gaps in knowledge.

CORE Group Board of Directors Vice-Chair David Pyle welcomed

attendees on behalf of the Board.

4 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference

The conference also marked the annual presentation of the Dory Storms
Child Survival Recognition Award. Since 2001, CORE Group has presented
this annual award to a person who demonstrates courage, leadership,
and commitment to ending child death. 2018 awardee Thomas P. Davis,
Jr. accepted this honor during the conference in recognition of his more
than three decades of experience supporting community-based programs
of 34 organizations in underserved communities in 27 countries of Latin
America, Africa and Asia. He is currently the Global Sector Lead for
Sustainable Health at World Vision International, based in Geneva.
Tom led a multisectoral team of development professionals to create and
roll-out an evidence-based community development essentials model
globally (Child-focused Community Transformation). He is also the developer
of the Barrier Analysis methodology, Local Determinants of Malnutrition
methodology, and Cascade Group model. Finally, Tom is the co-pioneer of
the Care Group model. In his acceptance, he advocated for future CORE
Group conference to focus on preventing violence against children, and gave
a tribute to his wife Judy, who works with communities as a minister.

Tom Davis accepts the 2018 Dory Storms

Award and is joined by colleagues,
friends, and family at the presentation
of the award.

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 5

 KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Opening Keynote Address: Forced Displacement and
the Humanitarian-Development Nexus.
Dr. Paul Spiegel, MD, MPH, Director, Center for Humanitarian Health Professor,
Department of International Health Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Paul Spiegel set the framework for the conference. He emphasized the
need for action at the humanitarian-development nexus by dimensioning
the magnitude of displaced people; outlining changing humanitarian norms
and global trends; and sharing strategies towards bridging the current
humanitarian-development divide. In addition, he cautioned that this is the
beginning of a difficult journey towards the goal.
Powerpoint and Plenary can be viewed on CORE Group’s website here.

6 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference

 Key Messages
There is not a standard definition for the humanitarian-development
nexus. Dr. Spiegel defined the nexus as: the connection between
humanitarian and development organizations, where each group works
together in a concerted manner to address humanitarian requirements
while taking into account current and future development needs.

The magnitude of displacement and humanitarian crisis is profound.

There are 65.6 million displaced people globally, with 20 new people
displaced every minute. 55% of 22.5 million refugees come from the
Syrian Arab Republic, Afghanistan and South Sudan. 94% of displaced
people live outside of camps, and are primarily hosted by low and
middle-income countries.

There are changing humanitarian norms and trends. International

humanitarian assistance has increased from $16.1 billion in 2012 to
$27.3 billion in 2016. Simultaneously, the financing gap between needs
and available funding has widened. From 2009 to 2013, United Nations
agencies and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
received 81% of funds. Local NGOs received only 0.2% directly. A shift
toward funding local NGOs directly is expected. New financing facilities
show some promise, but are a work-in-progress. For example: World
Bank hosts the Global Concessional Finance Facility and IDA18 targeted
to refugees; Canada merged humanitarian and development finance;
and Afghanistan refugees are accessing health insurance.

Working towards the nexus- what do we need to do? It is vital we

bridge the differences in humanitarian and development culture
(parallel versus complementary); outlook (less than a year versus
over five years); legal frameworks (humanitarian principles versus
sovereign law/aid effectiveness); approaches; settings; actors;
financing competition, etc. Furthermore, there is a need for joint
analysis and planning towards defined collective outcomes, focusing
on complementarity and respective comparative advantages. Finally,
we need to focus on support for displaced people. There is a need
to help offset their specific vulnerabilities of trauma, violence, and
loss. We also must ensure that we provide adequate support for host
countries –typically low- and middle-income countries – to implement
their own development agendas, including absorbing and integrating
displaced persons.

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 7

Plenary I. Real-time Case on Links Between
Development and Humanitarian Programming for
Rohingya Refugees in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh
Jesse Hartness, Save the Children; Trina Helderman, Medair; Mahfuzar Rahman, BRAC
Bangladesh; Emily Chambers Sharpe, Medair (Moderator)

Almost 700,000 Rohingya people arrived in Cox’s Bazaar Bangladesh

between August and December 2017, and the camps in Cox’s Bazaar now
form the largest refugee settlement in the world. The presenters highlighted
how their respective institutions shifted and innovated to address the
humanitarian crisis of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. BRAC and Save
the Children highlighted their development roots in Bangladesh, whereas

Source: BRAC

8 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference

Medair has strong humanitarian expertise, but is a newer presence in the
country, working closely with the government and existing partners.

Key Messages
Jesse Hartness shared how Save the Children, an organization with
50 years of experience in Bangladesh, a strong development health
portfolio, 90 programs, 800+ staff on the ground, and activities in all 64
districts of Bangladesh, learned that there are significant challenges
to the assumption that a strong development health portfolio will
automatically lead to a strong emergency health response. Specific
humanitarian health needs such as WASH infrastructure, outbreak
response, humanitarian coordination, referral networks, psycho-social
well-being, etc. were not part of the country portfolio and needed to
be built. To respond to the needs of this crisis, Save the Children had
to leverage global humanitarian response expertise and combine
with longer-term relationships and capacity on the ground. Save the
Children is working to ensure that such lessons of joining humanitarian
capacities and longer-term development platforms are institutionalized
for emergency preparedness to future responses.
Mahfuzar Rahman spoke about how BRAC, with 3,200 staff on the
ground, responded by providing primary care, sanitation, water and
safe spaces for children. They then transitioned to outbreak response,
psychological and trauma counseling, and expanded services to the
host community. In the 3rd phase, BRAC support entails assisting the
Rohingya population towards livelihoods and economic resilience. They
are now preparing for the oncoming monsoons.
Trina Helderman highlighted how Medair‘s expertise with emergent
life-saving activities, public health emergencies and disaster response
was a critical asset in Bangladesh. However, without organizational
history in Bangladesh, Medair had to navigate a complicated access
and registration process and procedures which delayed the ability to
rapidly scale up relief interventions despite having that expertise.
Key lessons highlighted included a need for: clear institutional
mandates and leadership for work; respect for differences in
humanitarian and development approaches and respective strengths;
better understanding of different population needs (e.g. outbreaks,
gender-based violence, psychological assistance); leveraging long-
standing networks and in-country relationships; tapping into global
capacities; better use of existing in-country tools and resources;
coordination with host country government and other partners; and
strategy to include host community’s vulnerabilities; amongst others.

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 9

Closing Plenary II. Prioritizing the Investment and
Financing for the Humanitarian-Development Nexus
Loyce Pace, Global Health Council; Takahiro Hasumi, World Bank; David Collins,
Management Sciences for Health; Hafeez Ladha, Financing Alliance for Health; Lisa
Hilmi, CORE Group (Moderator)

Representatives of four diverse organizations discussed the critical

but challenging process of ensuring adequate funding for efforts at the
humanitarian-development nexus—particularly community health. They
emphasized opportunities to take programming and finance to scale, new
models which could be explored, the importance of collaboration and
supervision, and finally the need for clear and consistent advocacy messages.

Source:
Financing
Alliance for
Health

10 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference

 Key Messages
Seven “P”s can help facilitate scale. The provision of services and
the funding to support them is fragmented and piece-meal. In order
to get to scale, David Collins recommended seven Ps: 1) pooling
resources, 2) prioritizing services, 3) patient pathways, 4) promote
efficiency, 5) performance-based contracts, 6) planning, and 7) proof.

Supervision is key but can imply major costs. Takahiro Hasumi

emphasized the need for adequate resources to monitor and
supervise efforts, emphasizing that insecurity in fragile and conflict
states sometimes makes the cost of project supervision higher than
the project itself. Alternative and more cost-effective approaches
include third party and community monitoring; surveillance;
telemedicine specialists amongst others.

Collaboration is critical. The World Bank, World Health

Organization (WHO), and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
are collaborating on key financing instruments, as well as on
implementation – especially with partners with long-standing field
presence. It is important to bring Ministries of Finance together with
Ministries of Health to make the case for why health investments are
important for a country’s development

New models of financing can work for community health. Hafeez

Ladha spoke about the Financing Alliance for Health’s efforts to
identify financing sources to fill the gap for community health with
a combination of public and private blended funds. With the latter,
the case needs to be made for the social and financial return on
investment with investments in health care. One example given was a
loan guarantee from the African Development Bank for Uganda.

Clear and consistent advocacy messages are vital for funding to

occur. Loyce Pace made a strong case for the conference community
to have a clear and consistent advocacy message, that is evidence-
based and makes the case for better and additional funding with
concrete case studies. She recommended highlighting data and
trends; and to advocate and articulate the case for community health
and the humanitarian-development nexus within the context of the
SDG, especially in light of overall shrinking resources.

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 11

 Emily Chambers-Sharpe,
Medair, and Sarah Butler, Save
the Children present at the
Concurrent Session “Campfire
Chat on Infant and Young Child
Feeding (IYCF) and IYCF in
Emergencies (IYCF-E): Promoting
Survival and Saving Lives”

Concurrent Sessions
The twenty concurrent sessions formed the main body of the conference
and further explored the technical areas of the humanitarian-development
nexus. The sessions were selected competitively by the CORE Group
technical review committee from many submissions received.1 Each
session brought together presenters representing various organizational
approaches, experiences, evidence and perspectives on the topic. Each
of the sessions enabled a deeper dive and discussion on the theme.
Illustrative topics included Inclusive Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal,
Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health (SRMNCAH) in Development and
Humanitarian Contexts – Achievements, Challenges, and Lessons Learned;
Lessons Learned from WASH-ECD related Activities in Kenya, Tanzania, Iraq,
and Yemen; Newborn Health in Humanitarian Settings – Examples and Lessons
from the Field.

1
Lara Ho, IRC; Asma Quereshi, Independent; Ilya Plotkin, Independent; Karen Kwok,
Independent; Alfonso Rosales (World Vision); Eric Sarriot (Save the Children); Gwyneth
Coates (JSI); Jennifer Burns (Catholic Relief Services); Kathryn Reider (World Vision);
Cindy Uttley (Samaritan’s Purse); Corinne Mazzeo (USAID’s Maternal and Child Survival
Program); Mychelle (Jhpiego); Catherine Lane (Pathfinder); Debora Freitas (Chemonics
International); Erin Pfeiffer (Food for the Hungry); Joseph Petraglia (Syntegral)

12 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference

Global Health Practitioner Scholarship Fund
This year’s CORE Group Global Health Practitioner Scholarship Fund was
made available through the generous contribution of Dr. Judy Lewis and
a grant from the Medtronic Foundation. Medtronic Foundation’s work is
grounded in the advancement of the Global Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). Medtronic Foundation believes that by the world community—both
public and private sectors—pulling together we can multiply our collective
actions and strengths toward shared pursuit of global good.
Judy Lewis and Mamta Rajbanshi,
who traveled from Nepal to present
at the 90 Second Science session. Ms.
Rajbanshi is a nurse and represents an
independent non-profit organization,
“Young Women for Change.” The
organization performs different
advocacy campaigns for girls and
women in rural and urban communities
regarding sexual and reproductive
health rights, conducts workshops regarding gender equity among the
young women, and provides comprehensive sexuality education to the
rural and marginalized women in Nepal.

Dr. Cynthia Matare traveled from

Zimbabwe (photographed with Lisa Hilmi)
and currently works on a project aimed
at reducing malnutrition in pregnant
women and children under the age of 2
years. The project intentionally aims to
engage fathers as well, and specifically
encourages men to be more involved in
household tasks and chores and reduce
women’s workloads, allowing them more
time to breastfeed frequently and adequately, as well as time to prepare
food and feed their children beyond the first 6 months. This project will
also explore the impact of maternal mental health on health and nutrition
behaviors.

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 13

New Information Circuit
The 20 New Information Circuit session provided an opportunity for
participants to continue to learn about new approaches, tools, and
innovations in a fast-paced, interactive format. The 20 table hosts
represented a wide range of topic areas with a strong evidence base for
effectiveness and scale. Participants cycled through a series of three
table discussions with the opportunity for small group questions and
discussions. As examples, table topics included: Saving Newborns in
Sierra Leone Through Community Referral Systems; The Polio Eradication
Tool-Kit; and A Practical Guide to CHWs and Caregivers to Provide Integrated
Support to HIV-Affected Children.

Paul Freeman, University of

Washington (right) and Melanie
Morrow, USAID’s Maternal &
Child Survival Program, ICF
(below) present at the New
Information Circuit session.

14 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference

 Ochi Ibe, USAID’s Maternal & Child
Survival Program, ICF presents “The
CHW Coverage and Capacity Tool
(C3) - the Operational Missing Link in
CHW Policy-to-Implementation” as a
90-Second Science presentation.

90 Second Science
“90-Second Science” featured nine presentations on science innovations
and evidence clustered into three themes: Testing/lab innovations at the
community level; Nutrition interventions for success; and Community
Approaches for improved health outcomes. 90 second science
presentations can be found on the CORE Group website here.

Poster Sessions:
Presenters from around the world prepared posters on a variety of topics,
for example: Combatting Malnutrition in Nigeria with locally sourced foods;
Girls Roster – a Tool to recruit adolescent girls in HIV prevention interventions;
Leveraging community linkages to improve immunization coverage in Benin.
Conference attendees went on a `gallery walk,’ engaging with presenters of
the posters and exchanging ideas and knowledge.

Poster session presenters

and participants.

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 15

Networking Session – Humanity and Inclusion
CORE Group recently launched the “Disability Inclusive Health Technical
Advisory Group” led by Alessandra Aresu (Humanity & Inclusion) and Leia
Isanhart (Catholic Relief Services). This new CORE Group initiative aims
to: 1. Promote learning on disability inclusive health and rehabilitation; 2.
Facilitate collaboration to promote disability inclusive health initiatives;
3. Advocate for disability inclusive health policies; and 4. Advocate for
increased resources for disability inclusive health programming.
Jeff Meer, Executive Director of Humanity and Inclusion opened the session
and shared HI’s recent updates. Judy Heumann, Disability rights activist,
Ford Foundation Sr. Fellow and former diplomat, spoke on the gender
and disability intesectionality of practice, especially for women and girls
addressing discrimination and violence.

Left: Alessandra Aresu and Judy

Heumann speak at the Social
Networking Reception.

Below: Conference participants

network at the evening reception.

16 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference

Non-communicable Disease (NCD) Workshop
Over 50 participants attended this workshop that focused on the progress
made in global health related to NCD prevention and management, with
special attention to humanitarian settings. The goal of the workshop
was to assess how our current health platforms can be expanded or
modified to include realistic, feasible approaches that can transform NCDs
interventions throughout the life course.
Plenary sessions and small group work reviewed practical interventions
addressing the life course approach to NCDs, and discussed new
developments and innovations that help reduce NCD-related morbidity and
mortality. Plenary participants included health experts, NCD Child youth
leaders who are building a corps of future leaders in global health, and
testimonies from frontline health workers. To build an understanding about
multi-sectoral involvement, presenters also addressed environmental and
economic factors contributing to NCDs in low-resource settings.
See the full NCD Workshop report here.

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 17

 NEXT STEPS
Opportunities to become involved with CORE Group!
The next Humanitarian-Development Task Force will meet quarterly,
and will be announced widely. Additional plans include evaluating gaps
in implementation guidance and tools and evidence, case studies on the
operationalization of the humanitarian-development nexus, organizational
learning between humanitarian and development teams and involving
different partners such as private sector, youth and others. Thank you to
co-chairs Jesse Hartness (Save the Children) and Emily Sharpe (Medair),
for their technical guidance during the conference planning process.
SBC Working Group has several activities planned. The SBC Journal
Club will continue throughout the year, and will incorporate articles on
the Humanitarian-Development aspects of SBC. In November, the SBC
Working Group will host a consultative meeting in November for donors,
researchers, and implementors on the Monitoring and Evaluation of SBC.
This Consultative meeting will provide a platform for discussions on taking
complexity into account in SBC and M&E in public-health community. It
should also advance appreciation and funding for these issues.
Additionally, the SBC working group will build the SBC evidence
base through partnership with universities and other organizations,
collaboration on several projects, and development of a technical brief.
Nutrition Working Group plans to focus on the technical areas of MAM
and SAM treatments; nutrition and disability; climate change, food
systems and Nutrition; and Obesity. The working group will hold Hosting
State-of-the-Art (SOTA) meetings on an important technical topic area.
Developing and/or hosting a HQ- or field-based training in a specific topic
area needed by multiple organizations (ex. qualitative methodologies,
social and behavior change approaches, Essential Nutrition Actions).
Webinars will also be held on the technical focus areas of: Approaches
for vulnerable populations: adolescent nutrition, disability; Nutrition-
sensitive actions: integration with ECD, agriculture, WASH; Triple burden
of malnutrition: integrating actions to address undernutrition while
preventing overnutrition and Acute malnutrition: CMAM/CCM integration,
humanitarian/development continuum.
M & E Working Group will work on developing and disseminating a suite
of updated M&E guidance and capacity building materials for community
and front-line health workers and their managers. These materials will be
participatory and designed based on adult learning principals, and will utilize
technology and remote support where appropriate. They will address basic
competencies such as numeracy, use of graphing, charts, etc., using MS
Excel and data quality review. A Show & Tell series will occur with informal,
interactive web-based discussions, with presenters who will use an M&E
tool or approach pros/cons and observations to stimulate a discussion of
the methods. Additionally, the M & E working group seeks to design a Digital
Data Guidance document, plan key M&E Sessions for the U.S. and Regional
CORE conferences and finalize the Rapid Health Facility Assessment.
The RMNCHA Working Group will have 5 priority technical areas this year:
the Nurturing Care Framework; mental health for adolescents and young
mothers; integration of community mental health into group antenatal
care; youth engagement and leadership for an inclusive health agenda; and
adolescent sexual reproductive health and the Global AA-HA! Framework.
The working group will host several webinars, conduct literature reviews,
host a technical forum; and conduct a youth consultation on the relevant
technical topics.
The Community Health Systems Strengthening Working Group will
continue their work on social accountability (SA), conducting a literature
review and examining guidelines for evaluation of SA; examine various
CHW programs and WHO guidelines for CHWs; and test the C3 tool in a
humanitarian settings.
To learn more about CORE Group Working Groups and get involved please
sign up at: https://coregroup.org/get-involved/join-us/ and https://
coregroup.org/our-work/working-groups/

SAVE THE DATE May 6-9, 2019

for the 2019 CORE Bethesda, MD
Group Global Hyatt Regency Bethesda
Health Practitioner Look for more information
Conference soon to be involved in the
planning!
CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 19
Young Professionals Network. CORE Group’s Young Professionals
Network (YPN) held an information meeting at the conference, presenting
on its networking, career development and skills building activities to
those in attendance. To further support its members, currently at 190, the
meeting also highlighted CORE Group’s Mentorship Program, operated
year-long under YPN. In its first year, the Program supports 9 Mentor-
Mentee pairs, coming from multiple professional backgrounds and
geographic locations. Pairs have flexibility on mentoring activities, which
include goal setting, professional skills development, resource sharing,
and more. Cohort 2 applications will open in November 2018.
Recognizing the value of mentorships for youth engagement and
empowerment, there was a discussion at the meeting around expansion
of mentoring activities domestically, and a potential for a pilot program
abroad. CORE Group has taken note of these recommendations, and
is working to improve the Mentorship Program and diversify general
YPN-related activities in the coming year to give its members more
opportunities to connect, learn, and do.
Learn more at www.coregroup.org/ypn.

20 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference

 STAFF
Thank you to the CORE Group Staff for all of their hard work!

Lisa M. Hilmi, Executive Director

Lisa Hilmi has over 30 years of global health
experience in over 20+ countries, employing both
human rights and community-based participatory
approaches to addressing health disparities
for women, children and communities. As a
nurse, researcher, and public health expert,
Lisa has worked at multiple levels of global
health, in policy, research, emergency relief
and response, development, workforce development, health systems
strengthening; from local to global levels. She has worked in development
settings, led response to HIV/AIDS/STIs/GBV in refugee and conflict
settings, and developed policy for outbreaks, disasters, and epidemics in
multiple countries. She has led over $180 Million of development, relief
and rehabilitation efforts. Clinically, Lisa has worked in pediatric hospital,
community, academic, and crisis settings, and has held leadership
positions in the UN, Sigma Theta Tau International, INGOs, and foundations.
Her research focuses on geographical health disparities for adolescents
in urban settings. She has a strong history of partnership and coordination
with UN, INGOs, CSOs, and other stakeholders. She sits on the WHO
PMNCH Board, the Steering Committee of the Child Health Task Force, the
Board of Directors at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation, as
well as other review committees.
She holds an MPH from Columbia University, a BSN and completing
her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, was a
Jonas Nurse Scholar, is a Certified Pediatric Nurse, and holds a BA in
Communications and Political Science from Villanova University.

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 21

Achille Kaboré, Senior Advisor for
Community Health and Civil Society
Engagement
Achille Kaboré has over 17 years of experience in
the field of public health. Prior to joining the CORE
GROUP, Achille worked for RTI International
and then for IntraHealth. He has expertise
in neglected tropical diseases, malaria and
community health. He has worked as a clinician
and chief medical officer in Burkina Faso; he has also hold maternal and
child health positions in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Rwanda.
Achille holds a medical doctor diploma from the University of Ouagadougou
(Burkina Faso) and a Master of Public Health from Tulane University School
of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans (USA).

Marc Holler, Senior Director of Partnership

and Business Development
Marc has over twenty years of experience
working in business development, strategic
planning, organizational design, and project
management. He has worked with or for bilateral
and multilateral agencies including USAID,
World Bank, Millennium Challenge Account,
Asian Development Bank, Global Environment
Facility, and Inter-American Development Bank. In addition, Marc led the
development of business development strategies, developed successful
funding opportunities with foundations, supervised the management of
USAID projects, and developed overseas training programs for country staff.
Marc has a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of
Chicago, and an undergraduate degree from Boston University.

22 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference

Shelia Jackson, Senior Knowledge
Management Specialist
Shelia Jackson is the Senior Knowledge
Management Specialist with the TOPS Program.
She has experience in envisioning, developing
and directing knowledge sharing programs
that focus on the role knowledge management
plays in helping people to efficiently accomplish
daily tasks while adding to the institutional
knowledge of their organization. A lifelong learner, Shelia enjoys the
collaboration and training processes. She strives to create environments
where everyone feels comfortable to participate and learn. Shelia earned
a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Florida
State University. She enjoys travelling, exercising, hiking, reading,
volunteering, cooking and doting on her nephews.

Comfort Siodlarz, Director of Finance and

Administration
Comfort has over 16 years of financial and
technical experience with nonprofits. She has
an in-depth understanding and experience in
implementing programs by donors such as
USAID, DOS, USDA, DFID, UNHCR among few.
Over the years, she has developed strong skills in
managing and handling financial reports, donor
reports, billing, invoicing, contracts and procuring goods and services.
She enjoys developing operational and proposal budgets and monitoring
awards and grants from both the field and head quarter level. She has
lived and worked overseas and has a diverse skills in working with people
from many different backgrounds. Comfort holds an MBA in finance from
Johns Hopkins University and a BA in accounting from Central University
in Accra, Ghana. During her personal time she enjoys building things
including home improvement projects.

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 23

Erin Murray, Operations and Accounts
Manager
As Operations and Accounts Manager, Erin is
responsible for managing CORE Group’s office
operations and accounts, membership, and event
planning, including conferences and webinars.
She has worked in operations and administration
for varied non-profit organizations, including
a charter school located in DC, an alternative
energy association, and an international educational non-profit. She served
as a volunteer English teacher for WorldTeach in Costa Rica, and has
taught English to various adult communities. Erin enjoys yoga, traveling,
reading, and attempting to cook.

Adrienne Todela, Knowledge Management

Officer

Adrienne supports the TOPS Program through

design and production of in-person and online
knowledge sharing and training events, and
creation and dissemination of print and visual
media content. She also leads the production of
the bi-weekly FSN Network News e-newsletter.
Furthering her role in facilitating learning among
social networks, Adrienne manages CORE Group’s Young Professionals
Network (YPN), coordinating career and professional skills development
activities for the membership in collaboration with partner organizations.
She also oversees CORE Group’s Mentorship Program implemented under
YPN. Adrienne is currently a Master’s degree candidate at GWU’s Elliott
School of International Affairs, specializing in delivery and coordination
mechanisms between education and employment for youth development.
Before joining CORE Group in 2015, Adrienne received her B.A. in
International Relations and B.S. in Journalism from Boston University,
and worked for various public sector organizations including Accion
International, The African Foundation for Development, and the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In her free time, she enjoys
trying different cuisines, collecting scarves from her travels, and spending
quality time with loved ones.

24 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference

 SPONSORS

Visionary

Leaders

Champions
Supporters

CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference 25

26 CORE Group 2018 Global Health Practitioner Conference