Our monthly check-in with staff from around the world. Learn more about the people who work at CHAI.
Stephanie Heung
Title: Senior Program Manager, Health Financing and Health Workforce
Location: Lilongwe, Malawi
Start date: September 2017
Please tell us a bit about your background and what brought you to CHAI.
Before joining CHAI, I was based in Washington, D.C., working on HIV and nutrition financing. My role encompassed global nutrition financing initiatives as well as country-specific projects in Ethiopia and South Africa. However, my role primarily followed a “fly in, fly out” model, where I spent only one or two weeks at a time engaging with country governments before returning to the US. I felt that this approach limited my ability to build deep, trusting relationships with our government counterparts and ensuring that our work was leveraged for decision-making when there was a political “window of opportunity.”
I chose to join CHAI because of its strong reputation for working closely with country governments and embedding itself deeply in the policy environments of the places where it operates. I was especially excited to work on a country team based full-time in Africa rather than making the occasional trip to work with the governments that we serve. I’ve now been with CHAI Malawi for seven years and am still so glad to be here!
1. When do you feel the most inspired by your work?
I am particularly inspired by my meetings with the District Health Management Teams in Malawi who are at the forefront of primary and secondary care in the country. These teams face the monumental challenge of managing a complex health system with high patient needs, often in rural and remote areas, and with extremely limited resources. In some districts, Directors of Health and Social Services are the only medical doctors serving populations of up to half a million people; I often think they have some of the toughest jobs in Malawi’s health system. Despite these challenges, many district staff are visionary and committed to making a difference with the resources they have. Ultimately, no matter how well-crafted our policy proposals are at the national level, if our work doesn’t ease the burden on these District Health Management Teams and the patients they serve, we will have failed in our work.
2. What’s been one of your proudest moments working at CHAI?
I had the privilege of leading a CHAI team that supported the Malawi Ministry of Health in developing the Health Sector Strategic Plan III (HSSP III), which will guide both government and donor investments in Malawi from 2023 to 2030. The HSSP III outlines 11 key “game-changer” reforms focusing on aligning aid towards an integrated platform of essential health services under the “One Plan, One Budget, One Report” framework. This approach aims to fundamentally shift the paradigm of how health is planned, financed, and coordinated in Malawi, offering the potential to address the fragmentation and verticalization of the country’s donor-funded health system.
CHAI played a key role as a technical partner in developing the HSSP III, leading efforts in costing, prioritization, analytics, and setting health workforce targets. Moving forward, we are helping to design the planning, budgeting, and resource mapping tools, as well as governance structures to ensure the plan’s successful implementation. It has been both humbling and rewarding to contribute to shaping the strategic direction of Malawi’s health sector, and I am proud to have supported the Government of Malawi in its bold vision for aid alignment and service integration.
3. What is your favorite holiday memory?
I did a scuba dive in Fiji with over a dozen bull sharks—my face was literally inches away from a tornado of sharks, each one 2-3 meters in length. Only when observing them in such close quarters do you appreciate how they are beautiful, wondrous, prehistoric creatures that are often deeply misunderstood. One of the sharks accidentally whacked me in the face with her tail and nearly knocked off my scuba mask—definitely a bucket list moment!
4. What is the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?
In Tajikistan, I visited the incredible Khoja Obi Garm, which is an old-school Soviet sanatorium that remains fully operational to this day. It transported me back in time to the 1980s USSR, when doctors regularly prescribed sanatorium-style holidays.
The menu of spa treatments was utterly delightful, including (with admittedly poor English translations) “electrophoresis,” “light bathtub,” “electromassage of the conscript,” and “intestinal shower enema.” Wandering through the spartan hallways alongside grandmas from across Central Asia, I tried as many of the old Soviet-style treatments as I could, pointing randomly at the spa menu and with not the slightest idea what awaited me. My favorites were bathing in radon water (yes, it’s radioactive!), electric massages, and sitting inside a Siberian cedar barrel filled with hot steam.
5. If you could choose to do anything for a day, what would it be?
Probably traveling the world—I’m currently at 86 countries and counting! I’ve developed a particular interest in Roman architecture after taking a course on the subject a few years ago. Some of my recent travel highlights include visiting Baalbek in Lebanon and Palmyra in Syria. These incredible ruins feature some of the largest and best-preserved Roman temples and cities worldwide.
Visiting Palmyra was especially memorable, as it had been partially destroyed during ISIS’s occupation but remains breathtakingly beautiful. I was fortunate enough to experience the site almost entirely alone, with just my guide, which made the visit even more powerful.
