Marianne El-Khoury

Marianne El-Khoury is a seasoned manager of global health programs. At Abt, she has held senior management and technical roles on USAID-funded projects in health systems strengthening and private sector health. She has also led research and evaluation studies in family planning and reproductive health, maternal and child health, and health financing.

El-Khoury is currently the Deputy Director of the $209 million Local Health System Sustainability (LHSS) Project, USAID’s flagship project in integrated health systems strengthening. She provides overall leadership, management, and oversight of project activities across more than 20 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. She also serves as the Global Development representative for Abt’s Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Previously, El-Khoury served as interim project director on LHSS, regional manager and portfolio lead on the USAID-funded Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS Plus) Project and the Health Finance and Governance (HFG) project, with responsibility for strategic guidance, technical and budget oversight, quality assurance, client management, partner coordination, and staff management. She also held a Research, Monitoring and Evaluation Lead (MEL) role on SHOPS Plus, overseeing the implementation of research and MEL activities and promoting the use of evidence for program learning and adaptation. The research studies she led included private sector facility censuses in Senegal and Madagascar, a randomized controlled impact evaluation of a behavior change intervention in Afghanistan, two randomized controlled studies on family planning in Jordan, and two child health evaluation studies in Uganda and Ghana.

Prior to joining Abt, Marianne worked at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Expertise:

• Health systems strengthening
• Program/project management
• Research and evaluation
• Languages: English (fluent), Arabic (native), French (fluent), Spanish (basic)

Key Projects:

• Local Health System Sustainability (LHSS) project
• Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS Plus) project
• Health Finance and Governance (HFG) project
• Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) project
• Senegal Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) project
• Health Systems 20/20 project

Publications:

• El-Khoury, Marianne, Bettina Brunner, and Sean Callahan. 2020. Accelerating Private Sector Engagement: Public-Private Engagement. 2020. Brief. Rockville, MD: Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector Plus Project, Abt Global.
• El-Khoury, Marianne, Rebecca Thornton, Minki Chatterji, Sarah Kamhawi, Phoebe Sloane, Mays Halassa. September 2016. Counseling Women and Couples on Family Planning: A Randomized Study in Jordan. Studies in Family Planning. Vol 47, 222–238
• El-Khoury, Marianne, Kathy Banke, Phoebe Sloane. June 2016. Improved Childhood Diarrhea Treatment Practices in Ghana: A Pre-Post Evaluation of a Comprehensive Private-Sector Program. Global Health: Science and Practice.
• El-Khoury, Marianne, Rebecca Thornton, Minki Chatterji, and Soonie Choi. October 2015. Effectiveness of Evidence-Based Medicine on Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Family Planning Providers: A Randomized Experiment in Jordan. BMC Health Services Research 15:449
• El-Khoury, Marianne, Laurel Hatt, and Timothee Gandaho. Aug 2012. User fee exemptions and equity in access to caesarean sections: an analysis of patient survey data in Mali. International Journal for Equity in Health 2012 11:49.