Who we Are: We are a group of self employed health development specialists who have worked extensively in low and middle income countries. We share a common vision of reducing poverty and improving the health and lives of others. We have complementary skills, knowledge and a strong track record of delivering short and medium term consultancy for a range of national governments, foundations, major charities and international agencies. We all know and trust each other and have come together to provide high quality expertise either as single consultants or as small teams. Our working arrangements enable us to provide professional support to each other and high quality peer review. What we do: Members of the network have the capacity and experience to undertake the following: Scoping and design of programmes and projects (including business case development) Monitoring and evaluation; design and implementation (working to DFID procedures and also to IEG/WB and DAC guidelines) Supporting governments in strategy development Policy analysis Programme design Operational and strategic planning Operational research, desk based research, synthesis and analysis Facilitating major health development events, high level meetings Our ethos: We recognise that aid budgets and programmes are under increasing pressure to keep costs down, demonstrate value for money and still deliver results. Our model helps ensure that the “hidden” costs of hiring and using consultants are kept to a minimum whilst still providing high quality expertise. The current economic climate makes employing self-employed consultants attractive. We are a network of consultants with no corporate identity and have no buildings to maintain and no management overheads. This means that we are demonstrably value for money. We will quote you a daily rate plus reimbursables at cost. Our network is transaction light, can respond and mobilise quickly and is committed to using new technology (including secure video conferencing) to reduce costs. We strive to keep costs down by using services known to each of us where we can get the “best deal” for example, on international flights, meeting rooms and hotels. We are experienced specialists who are independent and interested primarily in short and medium term work. As such we have no potential conflicts of interest, for example, with working on short term design assignments versus long term implementation work. We comply with the appropriate local tax requirements (VAT and personal income tax), each carry professional indemnity insurance and maintain an active personal Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Porfolio.
