Management

Executive Director

Kaitiritimba Kitungi Robinah is the Executive Director of Uganda National Health Consumers’ Organization (UNHCO). Robinah has over 15 years’ experience in Civil Society leadership in the health sector representing patients’ voices at community, national and international levels. As a Patient Safety Champion for Afro- region under the World Health Organisation (WHO) Patient Safety Programme, she has served on several WHO expert Panels including the WHO Advisory Group on the Governance of the Private Sector for Universal Health Coverage (UHC), Patient and Family Engagement, African Partnership for Patients Safety Childhood Obesity, Injection Safety, Surgical Site Infection Prevention among others. She also served as the Civil Society Representative for the Global Financing Facility.

At the national level, she represents community voices at the Health policy Advisory Committee (HPAC) of the Ministry of Health Uganda and has been Principal Investigator for several Studies on the Right to Health and Social Accountability. She is a seasoned expert on the Rights Based Approach (RBA) and Social Accountability across the private and public sectors working with parliament to pass people-centred laws and mobilizing civil society and communities to engage duty bearers to ensure that services respond to citizen needs.

Robinah has led various interventions on citizen engagement for health that contributed significant improvements in the health sector. Her achievements include; drafting and getting government to adopt the Patients’ Charter for Uganda, developing and rolling out the UNHCO community Score Card in the districts, leading the development of the Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (SRMNCAH) score card, leading the advocacy for the enactment into law of the Tobacco Control Act 2015 as  part of the broader campaign for the control of Non-Communicable Diseases ad Universal Health Coverage and establishment of citizens’ engagement platforms in over 30 districts in Uganda.

As part of community mobilization for change, Robinah mobilized communities to spearhead implementation of tobacco control in Uganda for which she received the Global MPOWER Bloomberg Philanthropies award on behalf of UNHCO in 2018.

These achievements are evidence of her excellent skills in mobilising citizens’ participation for action and working with different stakeholders and partners at both local and international scenes including Open Society Foundation (OSF), World Bank Institute (WBI), Makerere School of Public Health (MUSPH), Media, private and public sector to promote citizen voices and influence policy and practice.

She has skills and competences in corporate governance with a rich experience on various boards and committees at local and international levels. She is a member of the Makerere University School of Public Health Institutional review Board (IRB) for Higher Degrees, Research and Ethics Committee; member of the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology – National Bio-Safety committee.

Robinah presents a rich and wide experience in governance, promoting patient-centred healthcare and patients’ voices as an integral part of health systems strengthening at the grass root, national and international level.

She is a holder of Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts in Public Administration and Management and several trainings in citizen engagement, social accountability and Universal Health Coverage.