Brian Chirwa

Brian Chirwa is an agricultural and environmental scientist with over three decades worth of experience working on projects funded by the World Bank, the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), the Environmental Council of Zambia, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). He brings 18 years’ experience on PMI-funded projects focused on indoor residual spraying (IRS) and insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) and has provided technical leadership, assistance, and high-level management for country-wide Zambian IRS and ITN campaigns. Brian also has three decades' worth of experience designing environmental information systems (EIS) for public organizations.

Mr. Chirwa currently serves as the Chief of Party (COP) for the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative Evolving Vector Control to Fight Malaria Project (PMI Evolve) in Zambia. In this role, he oversees a team of 35 people and is responsible for assuring overall strategic direction, operations management, technical leadership, and financial and administrative compliance for all project activities meet desired outcomes, and are completed on time, and within budget. Mr. Chirwa is also the main contact between the project and Zambian governmental organizations such as the National Malaria Elimination Program (NMEP) and other stakeholders in the country.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Chirwa served as the Deputy COP on the Abt-led PMI VectorLink Project from April 2018-March 2023, where he supported the COP in the planning, implementation, and delivery of successful IRS programming and ITN campaigns. He chaired the project procurement committee and took the lead to ensure that gender initiatives increased participation in all aspects of IRS programming.

Before the launch of PMI VectorLink, he served in the same role on the PMI Africa Indoor Residual Spraying (AIRS) Project, implementing innovative approaches to strengthening the capacity of the National Malaria Elimination Program to deliver quality IRS in 35 districts and oversaw the implementation of IRS activities in 10 districts.

Between 2006 and 2015, he served in a variety of other roles on Abt-led vector control programs.

Before joining Abt, Mr. Chirwa worked extensively with GIS systems accomplishing the planning of the development of 5 Environmental Information Systems components for the Zambian Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre Documentation and Information Systems and was the Geo-Information Systems Officer for the Environmental Council of Zambia.

Expertise

• Vector control management
• Project management
• Strategy execution
• ArcGIS desktop
• DIVA GIS

Key Projects

• PMI Evolve
• PMI VectorLink Project
• PMI AIRS Project
• U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative Zambia Integrated Systems Strengthening Program (ZISSP) Project
• U.S. Agency for International Development Health Systems Strengthening Program (HSSP) Project

Publications

• Zambia, Ministry of Health. 2013. “Improving paying of indoor residual spray teams using mobile money transfer” Presented at the pan African malaria Conference, Durban, South Africa, 05 – 12 October.
• Zambia, Ministry of Health. 2009. Indoor Residual Spraying Guidelines (Volumes 1-5) Contributor, NMCC, Lusaka, Zambia.
• Chirwa, B. 2009. “Using PDAs to Improve Malaria IRS Service Delivery”. Presented at Global Health Council Conference, Washington D.C., 26 – 30th May
• Chirwa, B.  2009. “Using personal data assistants in Zambia’s indoor residual spray planning process”. Presented at the American Malaria Control Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, April 6 – 10 April
• Zambia, Ministry of Health. 2009. Indoor Residual Spraying 2009 Needs Assessment Report for Lusaka and Central Provinces, by Prof Kumar S Baboo, Dr Elizabeth Chizema and Brian Chirwa, NMCC, Lusaka, Zambia.