Key Expertise
Dr. Ghanshyam Gautam is a Health Economist by profession and has twenty years of experience mostly working in health policy and systems reform, social protection, evidence-based planning and capacity development. His key areas of expertise are policy and strategic reform, health systems strengthening, health financing and health insurance, social protection, policy research and costing. Throughout his career, he has provided technical assistance to ministries, international organizations, private organizations, and international donors in the areas of health policy and strategy, health financing, social health protection and resource tracking and costing.
His career highlights include leading the Post-Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) for Health Sector from the development partners’ side, support in developing policy and strategic planning for the health sector in the capacity of Governance Advisor and his work in Afghanistan as a Health Economist in a USAID-funded Health Sector Resiliency Project.
He is currently employed with HERD International as a Lead on Health Economics, systems and Social Protection and has been contributing to different projects being implemented in collaboration with multiple institutions. In 2023, he has been elected as Secretary of the Nepal Health Economics Association.
Work undertaken that best illustrates capability to handle the tasks assigned
Governance Advisor- UKaid funded Nepal Health Sector Support Programme: In the capacity of the technical advisor, Dr Gautam played an important role in reframing policy and legal framework as well as systems reform in the health sector in Nepal in accordance with governance and fiscal federalism and contributed towards evidence-based policy and planning.
Health Economist- The Palladium Group, USA: Dr. Gautam provided mentoring and training support to the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in Afghanistan in health financing, policy processes, and economic studies. He extended support in high-level advocacies for increased domestic resources for health, facilitated policy processes on health financing reforms, and supported health systems research.
Costing Expert-Consultant, World Health Organization, Nepal: His responsibilities included analysing budget and expenditure data in the health sector, identifying resource requirements for costing of National Health Sector Strategy; and projecting the overall cost of implementing the strategy over five years’ period (2015- 2020) with low, medium and high case scenarios.
Health Financing Expert, German International Cooperation, Nepal: As an independent consultant, Dr. Gautam extended support in the Health Sector Support Programme. His responsibilities included supporting in preparing the regulatory framework, scheme design and implementation procedure for national health insurance; analysing the current pricing and cost of delivering health services in relation to designing provider payment for health insurance; supervising analytical works towards the production of National Health Accounts; among others.
Technical Expert, NHSSP, Options Consultancy, UK: Dr. Gautam supported in formulating the Nepal Health Sector Strategy (2015/16-2019/20) by contributing in defining outcomes, outputs, target indicators and major interventions for the strategy, supporting in producing implementation plan as per the strategy and analysing expenditure pattern and forecasting financing scenario for the implementation period of the strategy.
Senior Programme Officer- German International Cooperation, Nepal: During this tenure, Dr. Gautam provided technical advice to the Ministry of Health and Population on health financing and social health protection; supported in conducting research studies and reviews, and explored reform options to improve health system performance; and engaged in stakeholder dialogue and consultation for the Health Sector Support Program.