Rachel Silverman
Senior Policy Analyst and Assistant Director of Global Health Policy
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Bio
Rachel Silverman is a senior policy analyst and assistant director of global health policy at the Center for Global Development, focusing on global health financing and incentive structures. During previous work at the Center from 2011 to 2013, she contributed to research and analysis on value for money, incentives, measurement, and policy coherence in global health, among other topics. Before joining CGD, Silverman spent two years supporting democratic strengthening and good governance programs in Kosovo and throughout Central and Eastern Europe with the National Democratic Institute. She holds a master's of philosophy with distinction in public health from the University of Cambridge, which she attended as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She also holds a BA with distinction in international relations and economics from Stanford University.
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Media Contact
Holly Shulman
hshulman@cgdev.org
In the News
July 14, 2017
Working Groups
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More From Rachel Silverman
October 25, 2013
Publication
The Global Fund is currently finalizing design and implementation of its New Funding Model (NFM), which includes a focus on strengthened measurement and an impact-based investment strategy.
October 23, 2013
Publication
More than ever, global health funding agencies must get better value for money from their investment portfolios; to do so, each agency must know the interventions it supports and the sub-populations targeted by those interventions in each country. In this study we examine the interventions supported by two major international AIDS funders: the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (‘Global Fund’) and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
October 15, 2013
Blog Post
Break out the firecrackers and balloons – and water and soap: today is Global Handwashing Day! And while today's significance may get lost in the very busy calendar of Global Health "holidays", this one really does deserve special celebration.
September 17, 2013
Publication
This report offers a strategy for the Global Fund to get more health for the money by focusing more on results, maximizing cost-effectiveness, and systematically measuring performance throughout its operations.
August 22, 2013
Publication
Performance-based financing can be used by global-health funding agencies to improve program performance and thus value for money. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was one of the first global-health funders to deploy a performance-based financing system. However, its complex, multistep system for calculating and paying on grant ratings has several components that are subjective and discretionary. We aimed to test the association between grant ratings and disbursements, an indication of the extent to which incentives for performance are transmitted to grant recipients.
July 29, 2013
Blog Post
As the largest bilateral donor in global health, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is unequaled in its reach and impact. Yet despite its larger-than-life profile, we’ve found that the details of its implementation arrangements and decision-making often remains obscure to the longstanding chagrin of global health observers. Among the common questions: Where does scarce PEPFAR funding go? Which countries and implementers receive the bulk of PEPFAR funds? And what factors influence PEPFAR’s allocation of resources across recipient countries?
July 29, 2013
Publication
Little is known about the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) financial flows within the United States (US) government, to its contractors, and to countries. We track the financial flows of PEPFAR – from donor agencies via intermediaries and finally to prime partners. We reviewed and analyzed publicly available government documents; a Center for Global Development dataset on 477 prime partners receiving PEPFAR funding in FY2008; and a cross-country dataset to predict PEPFAR outlays at the country level. We present patterns in Congressional appropriations to US government implementing agencies; the landscape of prime partners and contractors; and the allocation of PEPFAR funding by disease burden as a measure of country need.
May 20, 2013
Blog Post
This is a joint post with Rachel Silverman.
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July 29, 2013
Blog Post
As the largest bilateral donor in global health, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is unequaled in its reach and impact. Yet despite its larger-than-life profile, we’ve found that the details of its implementation arrangements and decision-making often remains obscure to the longstanding chagrin of global health observers. Among the common questions: Where does scarce PEPFAR funding go? Which countries and implementers receive the bulk of PEPFAR funds? And what factors influence PEPFAR’s allocation of resources across recipient countries?
December 11, 2012
Blog Post
This is a joint post with Rachel Silverman.
Last week, I attended a conference on South Africa’s national health insurance (NHI), which was hosted in Pretoria by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). A key recurring theme and consensus emerged: South Africa must develop a clearer plan and strategy for the “piloting” phase of its national health insurance.
Some background: In 2011, the government of South Africa committed itself to providing all of its citizens with “a defined package of comprehensive (health) services” through national health insurance. While the details are still up in the air, the government issued a preliminary policy paper which estimated NHI to cost R255 billion (~US$30 billion) per year by 2025, if implemented as planned over a 14-year period.
April 24, 2012
Blog Post
Navigating the global health funding landscape can be confusing even for global health veterans; there are scores of donors and multilateral funding mechanisms, each with its own particular structure, personality, and philosophy. For the uninitiated, PEPFAR, GAVI, PMI, WHO, the Global Fund, UNITAID, and the Gates Foundation can all appear obscure and intimidating. But if your head is spinning from acronym-induced vertigo, fear not! We are here to help you make sense of it all. How, you ask? With a clear method for donor identification: comparing the donors to your parents.
November 2, 2016
Blog Post
CGD’s new report on family planning, Aligning to 2020: How the FP2020 Core Partners Can Work Better, Together, offers three big recommendations for donors on the path to 2020. They are laid out in greater detail later in this blog, but in brief we urge donors to be more strategic and collaborative in how resources area allocated at the national level; we would like to see stronger incentives developed and rolled out for co-financing and performance; and we encourage greater accountability and learning across the results chain.
October 31, 2013
Blog Post
This is a joint post with Rachel Silverman, consultant and candidate for MPhil in Public Health at the University
March 7, 2012
Blog Post
This is a joint post with Victoria Fan.
While PEPFAR and the Global Health Initiative (GHI) have dominated the global health community’s attention over the past few years, the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) has largely flown under the radar. Surprisingly little had been written about the PMI; still the few available materials painted a reasonably positive picture. But just this month, the PMI released the results of an external evaluation which confirms what we’ve long suspected: PMI is doing a remarkably good job and generating “value for money” in U.S. global health efforts. Such results are all the more impressive in light of the common criticisms of USAID past and present – that it is ineffective, incompetent, and hampered by a complex and arcane bureaucracy. The PMI is a USAID success story that helps validate its ongoing efforts to reform and rebuild into the U.S.’s premier development agency.
Originally conceived in 2005 as a five-year, $1.2 billion scale-up of America’s malaria control efforts, the PMI was extended and expanded by the 2008 Lantos-Hyde Act, receiving $625 million in funding for FY2011. While its funding pales in comparison to PEPFAR, which received almost $7 billion for the same period, the PMI is among the largest global donors for malaria, aiming to halve the burden of malaria for 70 percent of at-risk populations in sub-Saharan Africa. Led by USAID under a U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator, the PMI is jointly implemented with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
May 13, 2016
Blog Post
Five thousand researchers, practitioners, advocates and others are descending on Copenhagen for Women Deliver, the largest conference focused on the health, rights, and well-being of women and girls. Much of what will be discussed aligns with CGD’s own work through our global health policy and gender and development programs, so we’re pleased to be attending and below, we’re pleased to share with you a few of the conference areas where we can add our voice.
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