Edwine Barasa
Dr. Edwine Barasa is a Kenyan health economist shaping policy across Africa through evidence-driven research and high-level advisory roles. He directs the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Nairobi and founded its Health Economics Research Unit (HERU), where he leads a multidisciplinary team analysing how to finance, govern, and deliver equitable health services. A registered pharmacist, he holds a BPharm from the University of Nairobi and both a master’s and PhD in Health Economics from the University of Cape Town.
Barasa’s studies on fiscal space, benefit-package design, and strategic purchasing have guided reforms of Kenya’s National Hospital Insurance Fund and informed the country’s Health Benefits Advisory Panel. His modelling work during the COVID-19 pandemic helped set Kenya’s vaccination priorities and was adopted by several neighbouring ministries of health. As a technical adviser to the World Bank and WHO, he has supported universal-health-coverage roadmaps in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.
Regionally, Barasa co-chairs the Africa Commission on Universal Health Coverage and sits on the Africa CDC’s Health Economics advisory board. He is a Visiting Professor of Health Economics at the University of Oxford, mentors early-career economists through HERU’s fellowship scheme, and regularly briefs parliamentary committees, ensuring that rigorous economic analysis underpins Africa’s journey toward affordable, high-quality healthcare for all.