Korea-WBG Partnership on Covid-19 Preparedness and Response: Workshop for Fiji Government Agencies on Learning from Fiji and Korea’s Experience

Kevin Yunil Kim is the Operations Analyst at the World Bank Group Korea Office. He has over 10 years’ experience in bilateral and multilateral cooperation focusing on project operations, communications, and partnership building. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, he worked at the Korea Marine Environment Management Corporation, a public organization affiliated with Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, focusing on regional and bilateral cooperation to tackle the challenges of preserving the marine environment against plastic waste and oil spill response.

He now works at the World Bank Group Korea office providing operational support for Bank teams who are interested in working with Korean partners in areas such as public health (pandemic response and preparedness), technology & innovation (digital development), environment (marine debris mitigation focused on plastic waste management) and sustainable development for Bank client countries.

He is also the communications lead for the Korea office providing media support for headquarters and assisting Bank teams with knowledge product dissemination.

Dr. James Fong is the Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services, Fiji. His previous role was the General Manager – Incident Management Team, the multiagency team that manages Fiji’s Covid-19 preparedness and response. He has extensive experience in health for the last 29 years, starting as a medical officer in the late eighties and building his career around Obstetrics and Gynecology as his field of interest. He was appointed Consultant Obstetrics and Gynecology in 2002 and later as the department head in 2005. Dr. James Fong graduated from the Fiji School of Medicine with a Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) in 1989. His post graduate qualifications include a Master of Medicine (Obstetrics & Gynecology) from Fiji School of Medicine in 2001 and Obstetrics & Health Informatics from University of Otago.

Dr. Gade Waqa is the Head of the Pacific Research Centre for the Prevention of Obesity and Non-Communicable Diseases (C-POND), a WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention and Management, a first in the South Pacific that was inaugurated in 2019.

Prior to this role, she has held numerous roles within research and was a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre when the Obesity Prevention in Communities study for 4-years commenced that increased visibility and the need to discuss at the Heads of Health as an agenda.

She has also held the Assistant Professor role at the School of Public Health and Primary Care at the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences and has a background in Public Health Nursing for over sixteen (16) years.

Dr. Waqa is also an Associate Professor, and her interests include health systems, establishing evidence to inform policy makers through knowledge translation, application of systems thinking and linkages of health complex applications.

She has authored and co-authored numerous papers on NCDs and was very influential towards the taxation of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages through her research with partners.

C-POND, a WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention & Management currently sits under the structure of the Fiji Institute of Pacific Health Research (FIPHR) which is the research arm of the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at the Fiji National University.

At FIPHR, Associate Professor Gade Waqa supports numerous Higher Degree by Research students (Masters & Doctoral) in Fiji and across the region.

Taejin Lee is a professor at Seoul National University of Graduate School of Public Health since 2008. He was selected as a Fellow of the Takemi Program run by Harvard University, USA, and conducted research for one year from 2006. From 1999 to 2008 he taught students as a professor at Hallym University School of Medicine. He graduated from Seoul National University's Department of Economics in 1987 and obtained his master's degree from Seoul National University's Graduate School of Public Health in 1990. He holds a PhD in Health Services Management from the University of Manchester, UK in 2000. Lee has been conducting research on the economic evaluation of pharmaceuticals and medical technology, and the equity of health care.

Margareta joined the World Bank in Dec 2010 in the Health, Nutrition and Population global unit, where she worked on a 36-country program, assisted the Global Director with the Bank’s reorganization and IFC-WB collaboration on harnessing the private sector for the poor. For the past several years, she was leading a regional project in West and Central Africa, to build human capital particularly among adolescent girls and boys from the poorest households and to accelerate the demographic transition across 13 countries, including several fragile, conflict and violence prone countries. The expanding project, benefits from the leadership of Ministers of Finance and is implemented by multiple ministries, mainly planning, health, education, social protection, women and youth’ affairs, in collaboration with religious and traditional leaders, legislators, non-governmental organizations, and strategic regional partners such as the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States and development partners. Margareta recently moved to Suva, Fiji, from where she is serving clients across the Pacific and East Asia on issues related to human development and health systems resilience. Margareta holds a Masters in European Politics, Law and Economic Integration from Sorbonne University, Paris IV. Prior to the World Bank, Margareta worked at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting Firm where she was one of the founders of the Firm’s Global Health Systems Group, serving clients in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Dr. Vikram Rajan has almost two decades of experience as a physician, as a manager in the private sector and as a Senior Health Specialist in the Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) practice of the World Bank (WB).  He is presently based in the World Bank in Washington D.C. and works on countries in the East Asia and Pacific Region and Africa Region. He has been responsible for providing strategic vision as well as technical and operational insights to design, fund and provide implementation support to complex programs and projects in both low- and middle-income settings.  He also leads and works on various knowledge products including economic and sector reports, technical assistance, policy notes and dialogue, impact evaluations and as faculty on capacity building courses. His specific areas of experience and interest are in health systems strengthening, specifically service delivery, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), Quality Assurance, public sector management, Monitoring and Evaluation, Information Technology for Development, and alternate service delivery mechanisms. He has also worked extensively on areas of reproductive and child health and non-communicable diseases.  He also works multi-sectorally with different global practices to influence health and nutrition outcomes.

Prior to working for the World Bank, he worked for C-SAM, a technology company that enables secure transactions over mobile phones and the Internet and headed the global Business Development Team. He also worked for GE Capital, India as a Six-Sigma Black Belt, and as an operations manager on one of GE’s leading Health Insurance products. He is a Medical Doctor and holds a MBA from the Indian Institute of Management.

Prof Kwon is Professor and Former Dean of the School of Public Health, Seoul National University (SNU). He was President of the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) in 2021-2022. He received the Excellence in Education award of Seoul National University in 2020. He has held visiting positions at the Harvard School of Public Health, London School of Economics, University of Toronto, University of Tokyo, Peking University, and University of Bremen. He was the Chief of the Health Sector Group in the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2016-2017. He is the president of the Korean Society of Health Policy and Management and has served as president of the Korean Health Economic Association, Korean Association of Schools of Public Health, and the Korean Gerontological Society. He holds PhD from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (1993) and taught at the University of Southern California School of Public Policy until 1996.

Aparnaa Somanathan is the Practice Manager for Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) for East Asia and the Pacific at the World Bank. She has worked on health systems strengthening issues for over fifteen years in a range of countries including Bangladesh, China, Estonia, Georgia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. She has also worked extensively on the implications of population ageing on health financing and service delivery. Aparnaa read economics at Cambridge University and holds a doctoral degree in International Health Economics and Policy from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Aparnaa is the lead author of the 21014 World Bank publication titled, “Moving Towards Universal Coverage of Social Health Insurance in Vietnam: Assessment and Options”. She is also the co-author of: “Financing Health Care in the East Asia and Pacific: Best Practices and Remaining Challenges” with Jack Langenbrunner; and the publication, “Live Long and Prosper: Ageing in the East Asia and Pacific region” with Philip O’Keefe and others.

Jason Allford is the Special Representative of World Bank Group (WBG)’s Korea Office. In this role, Mr. Allford oversees the office as a global hub on innovation and technology for sustainable development, bringing lessons from Korea’s development experience – particularly in relation to innovation, technology, and green growth – and applying them to the World Bank’s operational work in other World Bank member countries. An Australian national, Mr. Allford joined the Australian Government in 1994, focusing on macroeconomic analysis, forecasting and fiscal policy. He previously worked at the World Bank Group from 2014 to 2018, representing 15 countries from Asia and the Pacific including Korea at the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors. He has also worked as an adviser on fiscal policy to governments in Africa, East Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Mr. Allford holds a master’s degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Tasmania.