atinker

Anne Tinker was the Director of the Saving Newborn Lives (SNL) initiative at Save the Children from 2000-2007. Launched with a generous grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the 10 year initiative supports advocacy, action research and field programs to reduce newborn and maternal mortality in 18 developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia where the rates are the highest. She has over 30 years of experience in reproductive and child health in over 40 countries. Recently retiring from her fulltime leadership position, she is now a part-time Senior Advisor to Save the Children, allowing her to pursue some of her other interests as well. Before joining Save the Children, Ms. Tinker was a Lead Health Specialist at the World Bank in Washington DC for 10 years in the global Human Development Network and then in the South Asia Region. At the Bank, she was the principal advisor on women's health and safe motherhood. She developed the World Bank’s first Safe Motherhood Strategy, followed by the first Women’s Health and Nutrition Strategy, and chaired the global Inter-Agency Group for Safe Motherhood. She initiated a global women’s health program at the Bank, which included raising $20 million from several bilateral agencies, publishing a series of new analyses on women’s health in developing countries, and participating in the design and supervision of Bank-assisted programs in women’s health in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In the South Asia region, she was the team leader for the Bank’s health assistance program to Sri Lanka as well as a member of the health program development teams in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Before joining the World Bank, she worked from the bottom up from a GS7 program analyst in the Latin America population division, to West Africa Sector Chief for Health, Nutrition and Population, to Division Chief in the central Office of Health, USAID. There she developed the Agency’s first official health sector policy in 1980 and subsequent child survival strategy, leading to an increased focus of the agency on reproductive and child health. She also designed and supervised numerous worldwide grants and contracts, including USAID’s first grant for maternal health. Prior to USAID, she worked as a legislative assistant on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Her graduate degrees are in International Studies (Georgetown University) and Public Health (Johns Hopkins University). She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, hosted by the World Health Organization, as well as the Board of Directors of St. Philips Church and the Quadequina Company in Massachusetts. She has received awards from USAID and the World Bank, and received the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology Triennial Award for her contribution to women’s and newborns’ health in 2006. She has authored many publications, journal articles and book chapters on women’s and children’s health.