Dr. Diarra Houleymata

Dr. Diarra Houleymata is a public health technical expert with more than 25 years of experience in program development and management. Dr. Houleymata has designed and implemented technical assistance across all levels of governments and health systems, including for more than 10 USAID-funded programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Guinea, Nigeria, Mali, and other countries. Her expertise spans integrated health; maternal, newborn, and child health; reproductive health/family planning; nutrition; and other sectors. As Chief of Party (COP) leading several country-level projects and a member of national task forces, she has delivered innovative technical assistance to Ministries of Health (MOH) to develop, validate, and operationalize health policies and strategies, generating significant changes to national health systems.

Dr. Houleymata is currently COP for the Abt-led US$314 million USAID-funded Integrated Health Program in the DRC, which provides technical and operational support and capacity building to several layers of government plus civil society organizations to improve health service delivery and outcomes. In this role, she leads a team of more than 250 staff in 10 offices targeting nine provinces.  Since 2018, the Program has doubled vaccination rates for young children and doubled the number of new acceptors of contraception. All nine supported provinces have consistently increased the number of pregnant women attending at least four antenatal care visits as well as the number of insecticide-treated nets distributed during antenatal care and immunization visits, reflecting the value of integrated care.

Prior to joining Abt, Dr. Houleymata served in several senior leadership roles on USAID-funded projects. She was Project Director for the USAID Human Resources for Health 2030 project in Mali, which facilitated the development of a consolidated nutrition budget for the MOH National Plan 2021-2025 and advocated for its successful integration into the National Plan for Poverty Reduction. From 2014 to 2017, she was Chief of Party for the USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems in Mali, which developed and validated the National Quality Improvement Strategy and set up the National Committee for Quality Improvement, which received national recognition from the MOH and USAID.

Expertise

• Health System Governance
• Maternal, Newborn and Child health (MNCH including Nutrition, Immunization and Malaria)
• Reproductive Health/Family Planning (RH/FP)
• Human Resources for Health
• Community Health and Gender
• Project Management
• Quality Improvement and Supportive Supervision
• Knowledge management and Communication.

Key Projects

• USAID Integrated Health Project in DRC
• USAID Human Resources for Health 2030 (HRH2030) in Mali
• USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems in Mali

Publications

• Study on innovative health worker supervision enhancements in Koulikoro and Mopti regions of Mali. HSR2020 – Individual Abstract. Abdoulaye Sylla, Rachel Deussom, Mekdelawit Bayu, Daouda Keita, Dr. Diarra Houleymata, Eckhard Kleinau, Isaiah Ndong
• A Compilation of Interventions to Empower and Engage Women, Families and Community Across the Care Path. A paper to USAID ASSIST Mali and WHO, Lourdes Ferrer, May 2017.
• Towards Integrated People-Centered Health Care in Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. USAID ASSIST Mali, Lourdes Ferrer, Dr Diarra Houleymata, Sylvain B. Keita, Lazare Coulibaly, Abdoulaye Sylla, May 2017.

Countries Served In:

• Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Guinea, Nigeria, Mali