Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Elaine Ireland Head of Policy at Sightsavers Hampton, Greater London, United KingdomNonprofit Organization Management Previous Sightsavers, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Save the Children Education LSE 419 connections Send a messageMore options uk.linkedin.com/pub/elaine-ireland/a/73b/4b7/ Contact Info Activity Elaine Ireland is now connected to Jane Miller, MDG Team Leader and Senior Regional Health Advisor, Africa at Department for International Development (DFID), Paul Kasonkomona, Health, Wellness and Fitness Professional, and 12 other people. 33 minutes ago Elaine Ireland is now connected to Elden Chamberlain, Working to ensure Civil Society has the skills and capacity to effectively engage in the HIV response 1 day ago Elaine Ireland is now connected to Rob Worthington, Director at Kwantu, Siobhan O'Dowd, --, and 3 other people. 5 days ago Arletty Pinel endorsed the skills and expertise of Elaine Ireland Elaine is endorsed for Policy. Endorse Connections Like Comment 6 days ago See More Background Summary Having worked for more than 10 years experience in HIV & AIDS, before more recently making the switch to working on eye health, visual impairment and other forms of disability, I consider myself to be an international development veteran. With experience of both programme development and policy influencing I'm a true believer in the need to ensure a two-way connection between programmes and policy influencing and this means making sure that the voices of the people we work with are heard and responded to - hence my passion for 'meaningful civil society engagement' in policy making. My expertise includes policy engagment & influencing, participation of marginalised groups and civil society engagement in policy processes, and developing effective communication and influencing strategies. My thematic areas of expertise include health systems strengthening, HIV & AIDS (with a particular focus on children vulnerabale to and affected by HIV), and children's participation. Experience Head of Policy Sightsavers June 2011 – Present (1 year 11 months)Haywards Heath, UK As Head of Policy at Sightsavers, I am responsible for developing our policy influencing strategies and supporting my team (comprising of 4 Policy Advisors and 1 Parliamentary Advisor) to implement these effectively. I also have a key role to play in coordinating our international advocacy work across the organisation and ensuring that our policy and advocacy work reflects the voices of those who are visually impaired, blind or disabled. Policy Manager Sightsavers November 2010 – June 2011 (8 months)Haywards Heath I started my life in eye health and disability as Policy Manager at Sightsavers. Here I was responsible for managing 1 full-time and 1 part-time policy advisor and taking the lead role in identifying Sightsavers' policy influencing priorities. Global Health Advocacy Officer International HIV/AIDS Alliance January 2007 – September 2010 (3 years 9 months)Brighton, United Kingdom In this role I was responsible, along with 2 other colleagues, for establishing the UK Action for Global Health advocacy network which aimed to bring together organisations working on health and international development to deliver joint advocacy activities and improve the effectiveness of individual agencies' policy influencing and advocacy work. In this role I was particularly involved with work on aid effectiveness, health systems strengthening and access to and funding of health systems. One of my big achievements in this role was securing civil society engagement in the International Health Partnership & related initiatives (IHP+) - which is something that I am still working to improve in my current role at Sightsavers. Regional HIV/AIDS Adviser (SE Asia) Save the Children 2003 – 2007 (4 years)Bangkok, Thailand My role as Regional HIV Adviser for SE Asia was the perfect combination of policy influencing and programme development. In this role I was responsible for monitoring the quality of Save the Children's programmes on HIV & AIDS and advising on ways in which we could improve the programmes to ensure that we were providing the best HIV prevention, care, support and treatment programmes for children vulnerable to and affected by HIV & AIDS. In this role I also helped Save the Children's country offices to better understand HIV mainstreaming and provided advice and guidance on how they could do this effectively. All of this also enabled me to conduct regional level advocacy to improve the HIV response for children and young people in SE Asia. One of the things I'm most proud of achieving in this role was a piece of participatory research, conducted with children vulnerable to and affected by HIV in 6 SE Asian countries which was shared with key policy-makers in the region. The experience that had the greatest impact on me in this role, however, was the work I did to ensure that children vulnerable to and affected by HIV/AIDS were actviely engaged in and contributing to the 1st South-East Asia & the Pacific regional consultation on children affected by HIV - the impact on policy-makers of hearing children's experiences, challenges and needs directly from children is something I will never forget. Skills & Expertise Most endorsed for... 18International... 7Civil Society 7Policy 5Advocacy 3Strategic Planning 2Global Health 1Health Policy Influencing Participatory Approaches Civil Society Engagement Elaine also knows about... HIV Mainstreaming HIV Effective Communications Children's Rights Health System... Languages English Native or bilingual proficiency French Limited working proficiency Thai Elementary proficiency Education LSE MSc, Health Policy, Planning & Finance 2008 – 2010 LSHTM MSc, Health Policy, Planning & Finance 2008 – 2010 Recommendations Peter, would you like to recommend Elaine? Recommend Elaine ConnectionsAll (419)Shared (2)New (21) Ken Bluestone2nd Political & Policy Adviser, Age International Connect2Baba Goumbala2nd Representant Afrique chez International HIV/AIDS Alliance Connect1William Babumba2nd Senior Officer, Learning & Organisational Development Department at IFRC Secretariat, Geneva Connect13Divya Bajpai2nd Senior Advisor: Sexual and Reproductive Health at International HIV/AIDS Alliance Connect1Helen Parry2nd Programme Manager: East and South East Asia at International HIV/AIDS Alliance Connect2ade fakoya2nd Senior Advisor HIV and AIDS at The Global Fund Connect4Louise Holly2nd Senior Health Policy & Advocacy Adviser at Save the Children Connect8Frazer Goodwin2nd Senor Advocacy Adviser at Save the Children Connect1Sue Perez2nd Global health specialist Connect9Pam Decho2nd HIV, Health, Development and Civil Society Consultant Connect1 PREVIOUSNEXT Groups Global Public Health Join Global Public Health - Health Systems and Policy Join International HIV/AIDS Alliance Join What is preventing HIV prevention? 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