Welcome!
I’m Sara Miner. I advise and manage global health programs to improve their impact and efficiency.
Questions? Reach me here.
I’m currently a Senior Technical Advisor for the Strategic Information, Evaluation, and Informatics Division of USAID’s Office of HIV and AIDS.
In this role, I provide technical leadership and guidance on the use of PEPFAR data to inform strategic planning, resource allocation, and partner management for HIV prevention and treatment programs.
I have been based in Washington, DC since August 2024.
I have 19 years of experience in global health and international development, of which 14 years living and working in sub-Saharan Africa.
I bring multi-disciplinary expertise in global health program management; monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning; strategic planning, resource allocation, and project design; and social and behavior change.
Global health program management
With senior leadership experience as a Deputy Chief of Party and Operations Manager, I led teams of up to 19 people and managed annual budgets of more than $15 million. I have a track record of course-correcting underperforming programs to deliver results in challenging environments. As Deputy Chief of Party, I led a $20 million, multi-country project to overhaul faltering activities, improving performance against targets from 55% to 97% in just one year. I also have representational experience in bilateral and multilateral fora, including serving as the US government focal point for polio outbreak response in Madagascar. My experience includes health programs in HIV; family planning (FP); malaria; maternal and child health (MCH); nutrition; water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); infectious disease (including TB and COVID-19); and youth.
Monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning
In my roles as Senior Strategic Information Advisor and Evaluation Program Manager, I strengthened the capacity of national governments and local organizations to conduct and apply research, monitoring, and evaluation to inform strategic decision-making and evidence-based health programming. I have designed monitoring, evaluation, and reporting systems for $250 million of public health and social protection programming, including management information systems (MIS) encompassing 1.5 million unique client records. My experience includes supervision of rigorous impact evaluations, performance evaluations, and operational and formative research studies.
Strategic planning, resource allocation, and project design
In my current role with USAID, I lead teams in sustainability planning, resource allocation, and efficient partner management for HIV prevention and treatment programs using PEPFAR data. As a Technical Advisor with USAID in Madagascar and Zambia, I led diverse teams in strategic planning exercises to improve global health programming. My experience includes designing $330 million of new health projects and leading strategic planning and annual operational planning exercises representing more than $300 million of global health investments. I also wrote a six-year, $1.6 billion investment strategy for health, WASH, and nutrition for a USAID mission. Previously, with US-based NGOs and contractors, I won $48 million of new business as a key proposal team member.
Social and behavior change
With a Master’s degree in Public Health focusing on global health communication, I have held progressively responsible roles as Health Promotion Advisor and Senior Social and Behavior Change Advisor. I designed, supervised, or implemented more than $75 million of social and behavior change, health communication, and private sector health programming, reaching millions of people across eight countries. My experience includes hands-on design and user testing with behavioral science firm ideas42. I also wrote, recorded, and broadcast a monthly community radio show to one million potential listeners in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria.