Manasseh Gihana Wandera

Mr. Manasseh Gihana Wandera is the Executive Director for Society for Family Health Rwanda (SFH) the largest National non-profit organization based in Kigali, and it operates in all the 30 districts of Rwanda. At SFH Rwanda, Wandera specialized and mostly focused the organizational efforts on decentralized primary health care, social marketing and distribution of health products and services to the lowest levels of community, Behavior change communication around and has proved to be a strong advocate and promoter of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Rwanda including the most recently MoH approved and inaugurated concept of Second Generation Health post (SGHP) with funding support Abbott Laboratories. Under his Leadership since 2012, SFH has grown in; scope, budget, partnerships and consequently health impact it delivers to the people of Rwanda with an expansion of it programs in the East African Countries (EAC) in the collaboration with the EAC secretariat. Mr. Wandera is a seasoned Leader with a strong passion for cutting edge public Health innovations that change people’s lives in a tangible way. He strongly believes in the power of partnerships and specializes in building synergies and harnessing multi-Institutional expertise between Public Institutions, Private Sector, Civil Society, Bi-lateral organizations, International NGOs as well as UN agencies to transform health systems and delivery mechanisms in Rwanda. Under Wandera’s Leadership, SFH has built strong partnership with; Rwanda’s Ministry of Health, Ministry of local Government, All provinces and Districts, Rwanda Biomedical Center, USAID, CDC, UNICEF, WHO, UNFPA, SC JOHNSON, Abbott Diagnostics, US Department of Defense, ENABEL, Investing for Employment (IFE), Amref Africa, Global Fund and a dozen of local and International NGOs to bring positive health impact in the areas of nutrition, Family Planning, Malaria control and prevention, Water, Sanitation Hygiene. Maternal and Child health, HIV/AIDS prevention and health systems strengthening. The funding and support from these partners continue to register positive progress in contributing to the achievements of Ministry of Health in Rwanda. Mr. Wandera has led SFH's active efforts in building and equipping about over 260 health posts that provide comprehensive services in a walking distance of less than 30 minutes from their homes to the health facility, supporting over 90 health Centers across Rwanda, training health care professionals as well as equipping and training over 5,000 Community Health Workers to improve health care delivery at decentralized levels of community. Prior to joining SFH, Mr. Wandera held several senior positions within NGOs and government institutions in Rwanda and East Africa. He worked with e3 partners Rwanda office as the Country Director, He also served as Programs Implementation Director for Compassion International Rwanda office. Mr. Wandera has also worked as a Consultant in Institutional Development, Leadership, Strategy and Market Research with Organizations such as SNV (The Netherlands Development Organization), Rwanda Red Cross, The City of Kigali Local Government to mention but a few. Mr. Wandera holds MBA from Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands where he specialized in corporate strategy and economic policy, M.A in development studies and B.A in public Administration from National University of Rwanda as well as Postgraduate in development from Rehovot Center for development studies in Israel. Mr. Wandera lives in Kigali with his wife Antoinette and four children.