Nina Bowen
Overview
Dr. Nina Bowen is a social anthropologist with over 20 years of international field implementation, management, and research experience, with extensive involvement in the health sector. Nina has worked at a senior level for Save the Children UK, USAID, and CARE International in technical and country-based management roles in social development, maternal and child health and Primary Health Care (PHC), rural livelihoods, operational research, governance, monitoring and evaluation. Her key skills include her ability to bring practical governance and social development expertise to issues of service delivery and accessibility.
Background and relevant experience
On the Board of Directors of Health Partners International, Nina is currently an independent International Aid and Social Policy Consultant. With a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a postgraduate degree in Gender and Development, Nina was Country Director in Nigeria for Save the Children UK between 2007 and 2008, and was responsible for providing overall strategic guidance to the Nigeria programme, encompassing over 40 staff and three major work streams in local governance, health systems strengthening, and child protection. She was also responsible for the mobilization of resources and leadership of a cross functional senior management team in programme implementation, policy research and advocacy, finance and human resources. In this capacity, she was the Senior Technical Adviser and a Member or the Programme Management Board for the DFID-funded Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Programme in Northern Nigeria.
As Deputy Regional Director for CARE, based in South Africa between 2002 and 2005 (Acting Regional Director, 2004-2005), her regional portfolio included twelve country programmes, with an estimated annual budget of USD75m. Nina provided technical guidance in livelihoods and vulnerability analysis, citizen participation and accountability mechanisms, and conflict/post-conflict transition programming. Part of a core team to redesign CARE's assistance mechanisms to address chronic vulnerability in southern Africa, with a focus on Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia and Lesotho, Nina was also key in the restructuring of the regional programming framework to address underlying causes of poverty in weak states, including training staff in approaches to conflict analysis and fragile states.
Nina was Country Representative for USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives in East Timor between 2001 and 2002, and was responsible for annual grants program in conflict mitigation, civil society capacity building, economic governance, and rule of law. A part-time lecturer from 1999 to 2000 in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Nina taught a Masters course on NGO Management. Prior to this, Nina worked for CARE Mozambique as Assistant Country Director from 1993 to 1996. She supervised the country programme in rural livelihood and food security, microfinance and small enterprise promotion, and emergency/rehabilitation sectors. She successfully led the programme transition from relief to recovery and development, and designed and oversaw the policy influencing strategy for the rural water sector.
Nina has worked in Angola, East Timor, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.