Innovision Consulting proudly announces the joining of David Elliott as the Global Practice Lead – Knowledge and Partnership Development. David will work with our leadership team to support the international development partners and the global community of practice to design, manage, and evaluate systemic solutions in crisis-affected territories or markets in crisis, health markets, skills markets, and challenges related to food security and climate change.
Join us on a fireside chat titled ‘What promise does MSD hold for a world in crisis?’ on October 13, 2023, at 15:00 GMT with David Elliott and Md. Rubaiyath Sarwar, Managing Director, Innovision Consulting, as we try to unlock the future of inclusive development in the ever-so-messy world! To register click here.
David is currently a Director of The Gallus Edge, a not-for-profit community interest company formed to help tackle complex development challenges globally. Working in partnership with others, The Gallus Edge is focused on reflecting, innovating, and applying market systems thinking to help drive improved and more inclusive impact in a range of ‘frontier’ sectors (e.g., health and climate) and contexts (e.g., emergency and conflict-affected).
On this new collaboration with Innovision David says “I’m delighted to be working closely with my new colleagues at Innovision to help deliver on a range of shared interests. Like me, they are committed to reflecting and improving development policy and practice. They’re doing some really interesting and leading work in challenging contexts and in response to challenging problems. Working with them to help reflect, learn, improve, and influence – in partnership with others – is a really exciting opportunity for me!”.
Improving access to quality and affordable health care has been a particular area of interest for David since 2019. He has been working closely with the Global Health Policy Unit at Edinburgh University on their Managing Markets for Health (MM4H) research and training programme. This has involved the training of close to 1,000 health professionals across more than 30 countries. David was a senior adviser to the USAID-funded FHM-Engage programme a multi-country initiative driving improved access to maternal, newborn, and child health services. He was also retained by the Global Financing Facility’s (GFF) Private Sector Unit working on various health and nutrition priorities in nine countries across Africa and Asia. Currently, David is part of a World Bank / GFF team working to scale fortified rice to help tackle the problem of anaemia in pregnant women and stunting in young children across Indonesia. He is also engaging with the McGill International TB Centre to help apply MM4H principles in support of their global efforts to tackle tuberculosis.
Managing and mitigating the effects of climate change is another area where David has been working intensively for some years. Since 2020, David has been working with ICF on the design and delivery of their FCDO-funded work under the Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transition (UK-PACT) global initiative. Working across 16 different countries to test responses to a range of climate challenges such as greening financial systems, nature-based solutions, electrified urban mobility, and energy efficiency. He has also been working closely with the USAID Jordan Recycling team for the past three years on their work to help reduce commercial landfill waste and grow private recycling markets (particularly in metals, plastics, paper/cardboard, and organic waste).
David was a Director and Chairman at The Springfield Centre from 2003-2019. He led much of their MSD implementation work on programmes such as Enable in Nigeria (policy and advocacy), NMDP in Nepal (agriculture and tourism), LIFT and PEPE in Ethiopia (land reform and enterprise development), and GROW in Liberia (youth, conflict, and agriculture). He also led many evaluations, designs, and strategic reviews, and co(authored) many papers, articles, and reports. This work was across more than 30 countries and funded/led by development agencies (e.g., DFID, SDC, Side, CGAP), Foundations (e.g., Mastercard and Gatsby Africa), and INGOs (e.g., Mercy Corps and Concern Worldwide).
David was an integral part of the Springfield leadership team innovating their various training products and programmes on market systems development. During his time with Springfield, more than 2,000 people participated in their various training programmes. David has continued his interest in training since he left Springfield and established The Gallus Edge. For example, he was part of the DAI Market Systems & Partnerships team innovating a new MSD-focused course applied to USAID Health Advisers. The inaugural course was held in Uganda in July 2023, and the next course is scheduled in Nigeria in September 2023. He is currently partnering with The Hamakua Institute working on a NextGen Partnership for Food and Agriculture Systems in Hawaii. Central to this is the training and mentoring of a cohort of industry players to help generate a multi-stakeholder and collective impact approach to building sector resilience in response to COVID and ongoing climate-related effects.