Vera Siesjö serves as the senior policy advisor for health for Asia, the Middle East and Humanitarian Assistance at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
Ms Siesjö has over ten years of international experience in public health, with a focus on health systems strengthening, quality and process improvement, eHealth, NCDs and MHPSS. Prior to joining Sida, Ms Siesjö worked as the senior program officer for The Defeat-NCD Partnership under UNITAD.
Ms Siesjö formerly served as the country director of ACCESS Health International, an international think tank in South East Asia, where she lead work on health system strengthening, including work on health financing, healthcare quality improvement, eHealth and policy and system research.
Ms Siesjö also served as a health system consultant to the Asian Development Bank where she led work on people-centered healthcare and health system integration.
Previously, Ms Siesjö led work for the Centre for Health Market Innovations, an international network that acts to promote and connect innovative health care solutions, and for the Joint Leaning Network for Universal Health Coverage, a network of practitioners and policymakers from thirty countries around the globe that focuses on advancing UHC in low- and middle-income countries.
Her earliest career was in clinical psychology were as a program manager she helped set up an integrated model of primary healthcare and mental health in Latin-American.
Ms Siesjö obtained a Master’s in International Public Health from the University of Sydney and Master’s of Science in Psychology degree from the University of Palermo, Argentina.
