Chioma Okafor is a dedicated global health professional passionate about tackling health and development inequities for women and girls in developing nations. Chioma’s professional and educational background is in Health Behavior and Project management and she is currently the Team Lead for Global Technical Assistance at Karna LLC, a private public health consultancy firm. Chioma has over ten years of experience in global public health working on programmatic, and policy initiatives in the United States, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia. Prior to Karna, she worked as a Country Program Manager at Pact on the USAID ACHIEVE project where she provided programmatic and technical leadership for OVC and PEPFAR DREAMS programming in Nigeria, Namibia, Tanzania and South Sudan. She also led Pact programs and partners in the development and adoption of a Community Led Monitoring Toolkit for OVC and DREAMS programs. Chioma has experience in local partner capacity development and partnership through her previous work with Pact as well as Project HOPE where she served as the Senior Program Officer for the Africa region supporting country teams and programs in seven countries. She currently serves on the board of the Bokamoso Youth Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides financial support, mentoring, and guidance to the staff and young people of the Bokamoso Life Centre in Winterveldt, South Africa. She is also co-coordinator for the North America Chapter of African Mental Health Matters, an initiative striving to promote mental health awareness amongst the youth population in Africa. Chioma is also interested in the intersection between media and development and hosts a podcast centered on the Nigerian diaspora experience tackling a variety of topics including mental health and social issues. Chioma has written opinion pieces on various development topics including Food Insecurity and GBV prevention and been featured on media channels including Devex, The Africa Report, The Republic and BusinessDay Nigeria.
