Dr Syed Zulfiqar Ali
Content navigation
About
Dr Ali is a medical graduate with a Masters in Public Health and over twenty-five years of experience working in major programs in the health sector at mid and senior management levels with a focus on policy development, health financing, public sector reforms and strategic planning.
I have a mix of experience - working with the government in Pakistan as well at international level, World Bank, NGOs, WHO, DFID and UNICEF in major programs related to health systems, child health, women’s health, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, education and poverty reduction.
My experience involves leading large private and public health programs at the provincial and federal levels. These include leading a large national level private sector organization (the Aga Khan Health Service, Pakistan) for three years. As the Chief Executive Officer of Aga Khan Health Service Pakistan, I was involved in developing a 15-year Long Term Strategy for the organization.
Dr Ali's international experience includes working on short- and long-term assignments with WHO. As a WHO staff member, provided technical assistance to the government of Afghanistan in preparing a two-year National Health Plan.
Dr Ali has conducted stakeholder analyses, conducted key informant interviews, remained involved in Focus Group Discussions and SWOT analyses. He has been involved in reviewing data analysis and translating field survey findings into reports.
Affiliations
Research interests
Political dimension in government funded health insurance schemes as a means to reach Universal Health Coverage through an in-depth study of the “Social Health Protection Initiative” in Pakistan.
To accomplish the goals of my research, I plan to carry out policy analysis by using primary and secondary data sources.
The primary study consists of analysis of the political process in decision making for adopting UHC strategy and the Social Health Protection Initiative in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. For this study, I will interview key informants from the provincial and district level including ministers for health, finance and planning and members of parliament. I will also interview the staff of the German Development Bank (KfW) involved in decision making. I will use the health sector delivery and financing in Australia, Iran and India as case studies for comparison with the strategy adopted in Pakistan.
The important role private sector plays in delivery of health services provides it with influence over political process and decision making at the government level. I will try to assess the influence the private sector has over the political process in decisions related to UHC in Pakistan.
For the second study, I will use the data from department of health, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at district and provincial levels to see changes in use and access to health services over time. I will conduct secondary data analysis of service data from district health information system, hospital data, budget books and health elated surveys.
Location
Florey Building, 54 Mills Road, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 2601