Misrak Makonnen

Misrak Makonnen, a public health professional with over 20 years of international public health and development experience, serves as the Country Director for Amref Health Africa in Ethiopia since 2016. She is currently leading a diverse RMNCH, WASH and NTD program portfolio with an annual budget of over $15 million. Misrak has a proven track record in strategic planning, program management, and capacity strengthening of local partners, operations oversight, consortia management and public relations. Prior to joining Amref Health Africa, she oversaw a USAID funded five-year $30 million MNCH and PMTCT project as IntraHealth’s Country Director/Chief of Party in Ethiopia. She also served as the Chief of Party in Ethiopia and as a Regional Program Advisor in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda for AIDS Relief, a PEPFAR funded HIV care and treatment program led by Catholic Relief Services for a period of five years. Misrak worked as the Director of Programs with University of Washington’s International Training and Education Center on HIV (ITECH) in Ethiopia, supporting the development of national anti-retroviral implementation strategies and nationwide scale up of HIV/AIDS care and treatment. She also worked at the Carter Center in the United States as a Technical Consultant and Senior Program Officer, and in various African countries supporting disease control and eradication programs. Misrak holds a Master’s degree in Public Health and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.