Abena Afari

Abena Afari is an international development practitioner with two decades of experience working across national and global development contexts to advance inclusive public policy, social accountability and equitable development outcomes. Her work spans areas including maternal health, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), gender equity, economic & climate justice as well as accountable governance.

She has worked with government, civil society organisations and international partners to strengthen development practice through programme design, policy engagement and evaluations, supporting initiatives that expand equitable access to essential social services. A key area of her expertise is domestic resource mobilisation, where she has advanced approaches that integrate progressive taxation and accountability mechanisms into programme design to strengthen sustainable financing for social services, including maternal health.

Abena has also worked on addressing social norms and governance barriers that affect the uptake of health services, supporting approaches that strengthen both citizen engagement and institutional capacity to deliver responsive and inclusive public systems.