Catherine Odenyo Ndekera

CURRICULUM VITAE Dr. Odenyo Catherine Ndekera Personal Details: Marital Status:Married Nationality:Ugandan Gender:Female Tel:- Email- I have over 10 years’ experience and skills in Gender and Social inclusion at national and international levels. I am currently the East and Central Africa Regional Gender inclusivity advisor at Solidaridad. Previously I worked as the Gender and Social inclusion specialist at Health Partners International/DAI Global Health South Sudan Health Pooled Fund. I have a Masters Degree in Gender studies and a Masters Degree in Public health. I have over the years supported various organizations, national government departments, and donors as a gender and social inclusion advisor to carry out social and gender analysis, gender audits and impact assessments of proposed projects; and developed gender strategies to implement gender responsive programs. I have extensive experience in utilizing gender analytical frameworks to carry out gender analysis and design gender strategies for gender transformative programming. I have therefore over the years built up skills related to gender mainstreaming in programs for humanitarian and development contexts. Key successes have included the development of the gender strategy for the South Sudan Ministry of health and the development of a gender strategy for the Uganda Ministry of Health in collaboration with Center for disease control and prevention and key stakeholders. ADVANCED ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS: 1st April 2005: Masters of Gender Studies: Makerere University Kampala Uganda. January 2012: Masters of Public Health: International Health Sciences University, Kampala, Uganda. RELEVANT PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2019-Present: Regional Gender Inclusivity advisor East and Central Africa: Solidaridad. Responsible for the strategic direction of the Gender inclusivity programming in Solidaridad East and Central Africa. Capacity building of the ECA staff in Gender inclusivity and provision of tools and materials designed for effective gender inclusivity programming, gender analysis and gender mainstreaming of programs across the region. Fundraising and donor relations towards expansion drive in gender inclusivity in the region. I am also the Gender Inclusivity Advisor for Africa for the Reclaim Sustainability Program Funded by the Netherlands government supporting South Africa, West Africa, East Africa and North Africa Solidaridad Reclaim Sustainability Program. I have carried out gender analysis in projects across the region and developed gender strategies that address the gender issues identified. -: Gender and Social inclusion specialist: Health Pooled fund South Sudan: Health Partners International/DAI Global Health. Responsible for technical support to the South Sudan Ministry of health on ensuring policy frameworks, strategies and workplans take into account the needs of the women, girls and excluded groups. Provide technical support to 23 implementing partners Lots to carry out initiatives on gender and social inclusion aiming at increasing access of health care, health systems strengthening, health service delivery and interventions on prevention and management of GBV across the states of South Sudan. Provide technical support to the MOH, stakeholders and Implementing partners on Gender and social inclusion and monitoring of the interventions in the South Sudan states. I was a member of the South Sudan National Ministry of Health Gender technical working Group and the maternal and child Health and GBV sub-clusters. 2013 to 2016: Health/Women Protection and Empowerment (WPE) Coordinator: International Rescue Committee: I was responsible for the program management and overall oversight of the women protection and empowerment department and the Health department. I was overall responsible for the provision of technical support in Health and gender Programming within the IRC Uganda program with a focus on children, adolescent girls and women. Program intervention included the economic recovery program in Northern and Karamoja Region, the sexual and reproductive health programming in the Karamoja region, northern Uganda, central, south western Uganda and the refugee programming in Kiryandongo and West Nile Region. I was responsible for ensuring an effective Gender Specific M&E framework for effective monitoring. At the IRC I conducted several gender analyses/surveys that informed programming and developed the gender strategy. 2011 to 2013: Program Manager-Gender: Uganda Gender Equity Initiative at Protecting Families Against HIV/AIDS (PREFA). I was responsible for spearheading a National initiative aimed at integrating gender programming into Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded PEPFAR HIV/AIDS and maternal and child Health programs. This task involved conducting a gender analysis, identification of gender issues, developing a gender integration strategy with clear objectives and implementation plan, developing tools and training manuals, capacity building of CDC staff, CDC implementing partners, district staff and health workers in gender integration. It involved rolling out the gender equality strategy and developing monitoring framework to inform the impact of the initiative on program outcomes, learning and advocacy initiatives. Key achievements included a successful gender analysis conducted, development of a gender integration strategy, development of gender integration manual for health workers, tools and training manuals, the development of Monitoring and evaluation strategy and capacity building of CDC staff, CDC implementing partners, district staffs and health workers in Gender integration and GBV programming within the PEPFAR HIV/AIDS and maternal and child health interventions. 2011: Catholic Relief Services Uganda: Deputy Chief of Party; I was responsible for the implementation of the HIV/AIDS Program in health facilities and the community. The project interventions included HIV/AIDS, supply chain management, laboratory strengthening and community and health systems strengthening. I was a member of the senior management team and responsible for leadership in the areas of programming, coordination, representation, communication, fundraising, reporting and capacity development. I was responsible for establishing linkages, representational and strategic aspects of the program. I successfully coordinated the team and achieved high quality program outputs, as identified by a robust monitoring and evaluation system. 2010-to 2011: Catholic Relief Services; Program Manager; I was responsible for the overseeing and monitoring the implementation of the HIV/AIDS programs in health facilities and community based organisations. I supervised staff responsible for grants management and the prevention, OVC, ARV/OI Supply chain management and health systems strengthening. I was specifically responsible for overall program implementation, including provision of oversight to program planning, implementation and monitoring. I provided support to the program and operational aspects and coordinated the activities with the technical teams. I was responsible for the draft program documents, budgets and reports. I was responsible for managing the program budget and donor reporting. I successfully managed the implementation of the program while ensuring that technical staffs provide oversight and technical support to the districts, health facilities and the community Health workers. 2005 –2010: Senior Project Coordinator: Catholic Relief Services Uganda program. I worked under the Health unit and was part of the management team. I was Involved in the implementation, monitoring and management of the HIV/AIDS Program in health facilities. I was in charge of overseeing the program implementation at Health facilities and in the community based organisations. I was a member of the senior management team. -: Doctor at Iganga Hospital Consultancies: 1. May-June 2023: Gender Specialist Consultant at the Centre for Victims of Torture (CVT). Conducted a gender analysis of the Helping Survivors Heal project for each of the 11 countries of the partner organizations. In addition, I developed and implemented a series of trainings delivered via zoom to CVT staff in the 11 countries on best practices to developing a gender analysis (e.g. for proposals, for program development and implementation) and applying it to program implementation. 2. August 2022-September 2022: Gender Expert with DAI Global Health: Integrating Gender Equity and Social Inclusion into One Health Documents, Plans, Strategies – Uganda. Under the Tackling Deadly Diseases in Africa (TDDA). This included Engaging with the National One Health Platform, Gender ministry and other departments to ensure access documents and relevant contacts; Adaptation of the GESI strategy of TDDAp to the Uganda context; Reviewing and revising select documents of One Health Platform to ensure GESI integration in them; A mapping of actors within and currently outside of One Health Platform that can contribute to an inclusive dialogue in the functioning of One Health in Uganda; Supporting the preparation and facilitation of a two-day workshop on GESI/ One Health including its final report. 3. October 2021-January 2022: Consultant Gender Expert SoCha, LLC: For the USAID Uganda Integrated Community Agriculture and Nutrition Activity (ICAN). Ensure that data collection tools are gender-sensitive, supported gender-sensitive analysis of data and contribute to the final report. 4. May 2021: International Public Health and Gender Advisor Consultant IQVIA Solutions (Pty) Limited: UNICEF Immunization plus program Central and West Africa. Provided expertise on Public Health and Gender disparities in immunization programs including KRC and Immunization Plus with specific focus on the evaluation countries in West Africa. Ensured that the study design has specific focus to the subject of immunization and gender inclusion and the deliverables suggest measures to reduce economic and gender disparities. 5. July 2020 to September 2020: Co-Investigator-Gender on the consultancy services for carrying out end line survey for the Uganda multi-sectoral food security and nutrition project (UMFSNP) 6. November 2018-Dec 2018: Family planning consultant: John Snow International 7. Consultant: March 2017 to 2018: Carried out gender assessment of the South Sudan Ministry of Health, developed the first training manual on Gender mainstreaming in Health for the South Sudan MOH and built capacity of the MOH, SMOH, IPs and HPF staff. Provided technical support to the IPs to develop and implement actions towards gender and social inclusion and improved the monitoring processes of such actions utilising both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. 8. Consultant: April 2014: Carried out a gender analysis of the South Sudanese refugee programming in Uganda. This analysis aimed at establishing a clear strategy for gender integration in the refugee programming in Uganda refugee settlements. 9. Consultant: Gender sensitive value chain analysis of selected agricultural enterprises in Northern Uganda - IRC Uganda – May – August 2014 10. Consultant: November 2012 to 31st December 2012: Carried out a gender Audit for the Uganda Water and Sanitation alliance (WASH alliance) commissioned by International Church Cooperation Organization (ICCO) Regional Office Central & Eastern Africa. Following the gender audit worked with the WASH alliance to develop a gender strategy that informed the process of gender mainstreaming of the WASH sector. 11. Consultant: 2011: Carried out a gender audit of HIV/AIDS including reproductive health and PMTCT programming in Uganda. I carried out the task in representative districts in the 4 main regions of Uganda. Results of the gender audit/analysis informed the Uganda gender equity initiative implementation strategy. Professional Referees Loyce Arinaitwe Uganda AIDS Commission Tel: - Email:- Irene Atuhairwe Peace Corps - Email- Denis Tumusiime Pathfinder International Tel: --