Sarah Alkenbrack

Sarah Alkenbrack is a Senior Health Economist with the Health Nutrition and Population Global Practice at the World Bank Group, based in Washington, DC. She has more than 20 years of experience working on issues related to health financing, health insurance, financing of priority programs within the context of universal health coverage, and the aid effectiveness agenda. She works closely with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, both to further sustainable financing for routine immunization and to play a coordination role between multilateral agencies and countries rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been deeply involved in the World Bank’s multi-country financing operation, which provides up to $26 billion dollars for the COVID-19 emergency response and vaccination roll-out in more than 100 countries.

Sarah received her PhD (Public Health and Policy, with focus on Health Economics) in 2011 from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK) and holds a Master of Public Health (International Health) degree from Boston University (US) and a joint undergraduate degree in biology/geography from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario (Canada). Prior to joining the World Bank, she served as technical director of health finance/economics at Futures Group (now Palladium), implementing projects for USAID and the US Government’s President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). She has published several articles and reports on the financing of health in low- and lower-middle income countries and has worked extensively, with considerable focus in many African and South East Asian countries.