Meet our Experts (Abt Britain Team)

Sarah Dunn, an experienced international development leader, is Managing Director of Abt Britain.  She oversees the UK growth strategy and leads and mentors our UK home office and program teams to ensure quality delivery. Sarah’s experience spans nearly two decades as a senior executive with the Department for International Development (now Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office).  At DFID, she worked in Africa, the Middle East, and Caribbean and held several executive and strategic advisory positions, including head of trade policy. Her public sector experience is complemented by a track record as a commercial manager in the energy sector and work in the private foundation and nongovernmental organization sectors.  She led strategy and partnership development for the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and was part of the inaugural Executive team at The Power of Nutrition.
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Rosa Amboage is senior advisor of climate & environment for Abt in Britain. She is an environmental economist with multisectoral expertise in nature-based solutions (NbS), land use policy, environmental markets, green finance, and natural resource management. Amboage leads Abt programme design and delivery in NbS, climate adaptation and resilience. She contributed to the UK’s post-Brexit agri-environmental policies and designed its first national scheme promoting a natural capital approach to economic and climate goals. Previously, she was the lead economist of the £640M GBP ($740M USD) Nature for Climate Fund, helping UK industries and communities realize net-zero ambitions.
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Allan Duncan, Head of Strategic Growth and Portfolio Impact, has more than 20 years of experience in designing and managing large, complex programmes in Africa and Asia. His work has cut across a number of areas, including climate change, institutional development, governance, and capacity building. He has worked extensively in Africa and South Asia for such clients as the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Duncan will lead a new business growth plan to strengthen Abt’s position in our current markets and develop the strategies and internal capacities to expand into new geographical, technical, and donor environments. He also will reenforce existing programme management systems to maximize programme implementation impact to deliver greater value to the countries and communities where we work.
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Leisa Gibson, Abt Australia’s GEDSI senior advisor and practice lead, has more than 18 years of international experience working for governments, the United Nations, and civil society organisations. Her expertise includes strategic and operational planning, program formulation and delivery, change management, coordination and partnerships, quality assurance, and targeted interventions. She works on such issues as disability, development, inclusive leadership, gender and gender-based violence (GBV) in humanitarian action, child marriage, women’s economic empowerment, and organisational capacity development.
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Mbuso Jama, is a Senior MERL specialist at Abt, with more than 17 years of experience . His work has involved humanitarian, rehabilitation, and development efforts in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Partnership countries. His broad spectrum of experience includes impact evaluations and designing MERL and research frameworks for various sectors from health to governance. He has experience designing, monitoring, and evaluating projects funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, United Nations, US Agency for International Development, Canadian International Development Agency, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, European Union, European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, and private donors. 
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Peter Levine, Adviser to the Managing Director, is a multi-disciplinary economic growth and private-sector development specialist with more than 25 years of experience in program management, new business development, and communications for complex international programs. This includes extensive work in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Central/Eastern Europe. He also served as acting head of Abt Britain Limited and oversaw the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office-funded Good Governance Fund: Eastern Partnership Technical Assistance Facility.
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Fiona Mactaggart is a monitoring and evaluation and public health specialist at Abt, with 10 years of experience assessing health programs. As a senior member of Abt’s monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL) practice, she contributes to program design and implementation, and institutional strengthening in four key areas: research (e.g., survey design), evaluation methodologies (e.g., contribution analysis), lessons learnt (e.g., peer-reviewed publications), and company capabilities (e.g., adaptive management).
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Alexandra Nastase brings more than 15 years of experience to lead a technical team that covers health, equity, climate change, governance, economic growth, and monitoring, evaluation, reporting, and learning. She has experience in design, implementation, and evaluation of large reform and technical assistance programs to improve government performance. She has worked on five continents with leaders at all government levels. Nastase has held leadership and senior advisory roles for multi-million technical assistance programs funded by such organizations as the World Bank, European Commission, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade, United Nations Development Program, and Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office.
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Amanda Quintana is a global environmental health professional with over seven years of experience in international health and development, program management, and implementation. Amanda works at the intersection of climate and health, supporting the integration of climate change into health programs, climate risk management, climate and health strategy development, and broader stakeholder engagement in the intersecting area. To date, she has worked with projects—such as USAID’s Abt-led LHSS project in Colombia—to integrate climate change considerations into project activities.
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Paul Smithson is Abt’s Senior Adviser for health, with expertise in health strategy, financing, and reform. He has more than 30 years of experience in developing countries spanning a range of roles including: specialist technical adviser; aid strategist and steward; programme manager, and institutional reform lead. Smithson has worked for a variety of national governments, international organisations, and nonprofits institutions. His core area of expertise is health system performance, and he was a pioneer of sector-wide approaches in health. He has worked extensively in Africa, with shorter spells in Asian countries.
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Jane Wilkinson is Abt in Britain’s Senior Advisor for Climate Change, leading a growing team and portfolio of work in climate mitigation and adaptation, climate equity, and nature-based solutions. A published author on the impacts of climate change in Commonwealth countries, she represents Abt in high-level climate change fora and discussions. She has 18 years of experience advising governments and organisations on strategies to implement climate action. Jane served as an Australian diplomat before joining the Australian Department of Climate Change, where she led policy and negotiation teams on climate finance, trade and carbon markets. She played a key role influencing the design of the climate finance framework, including the USD 100 billion climate finance goal and the Green Climate Fund. She led research programmes at the Climate Policy Initiative and co-founded the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance.
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Olga Zues, a health-system and financing specialist, has 20 years of experience in international development. She focuses on the design and implementation of comprehensive reform strategies to strengthen health systems and public finance management. Her expertise includes benefits design to move towards universal health coverage, arrangements to support efficiency gains and service delivery improvements, innovative payment mechanisms, sustainability strategies, and institutional development. She has worked with the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Bank, Global Fund, United Nations, Soros Foundation, U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department for International Development, and numerous ministries of health, finance, justice, and education.
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