Paula Quigley is a medical doctor with more than 30 years of experience in program management, monitoring and evaluation, and health systems strengthening. She specializes in reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition. She has worked in South and Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe. Currently, she is the Director of the Nutrition Action for Systemic Change Technical Assistance Facility, a follow-on initiative to the Technical Assistance to Strengthen Capabilities (TASC) project, (2020-2023), which contributed to improved nutrition planning, programming and accelerated action on nutrition as part of the Technical Assistance for Nutrition (TAN) Programme (2015-2021).

From 2010 to 2021, she supported a variety of community-based maternal and child health initiatives in Zambia, working to address social exclusion and tackle barriers around access to maternal, newborn, and child health services. Most recently this included scaling up the use of an innovative new anti-malarial product that can be administered by community health volunteers to enable early detection and treatment of severe malaria in young children in rural areas.

From 2018 to 2020, she provided technical support on the Jalin project in Indonesia, which aimed to further reduce maternal and newborn mortality through partnerships with the private sector. In 2017 she was the Deputy Team Leader for a global formative evaluation of UNICEF’s health systems strengthening approach, conducting country and thematic case studies. From 2014 to 2015, she was the Health Expert on the African Development Bank’s Ethiopia Flagship Study, where she reviewed innovations in Ethiopia and globally to inform potential scale-up of effective interventions across multiple sectors. Additionally, Paula provided oversight and technical support to the Northern Uganda programme on Improving Access to Health Care for the Poor, designing and supporting the implementation of a results-based financing model to strengthen mechanisms for improving access to, and quality of, maternal care.

• Distance learning diploma, health systems management, University of London
• Master’s with distinction, mother and child health, The Institute of Child Health, University of London
• MB BCh, BAO, medicine, Trinity College, Ireland
• Board Member, International Stillbirth Alliance
• Co-founder, Women in Global Health, Ireland