Ramakrishnan Ganesan

Ramakrishnan Ganesan is an expert in health markets with more than 20 years of experience working in market development across Asia and Africa, including managing projects in fragile and conflict states. Ganesan has worked with health ministry officials to strengthen private sector participation in reproductive health, HIV, and maternal, newborn, and child health on projects for USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has strengthened the capacity of local social marketing organizations to enhance their impact and sustainability, facilitated introduction and scaling-up of commercial pharmaceutical businesses in low- and middle-income countries, supported social enterprises to launch health products and services, and conducted assessments to understand barriers and opportunities for greater private- sector engagement.

In Uganda, under the Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector Plus project, Ganesan led market development assessments for HIV commodities that resulted the Ministry of Health’s supporting the introduction of commercial HIV self-test kits. In Rwanda, he demonstrated the business case for commercial sector investments in family planning products, resulting in local importers introducing new products. He supported a Kenyan corporation to launch a sustainable health care franchise serving underserved populations that has scaled to 45 primary care clinics. In Afghanistan, he led strategies to develop the capacity of a local social marketing organization, increasing its contribution to family planning and maternal and child health by 23 percent and decreasing its reliance on USAID funds by 50 percent.

Under the Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector project, Ganesan led 80+ staff in testing innovative models to improve access and quality of priority health products through public-private sector engagement. He advocated with the Ministry of Health for the acceptance of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) contraceptive injections, resulting in a change of policy and its provision through the public health system beginning in 2016. By 2019, the public sector provided contraceptive injections to 1.7 million users, increasing use of the product by 150 percent. He co-designed a public-private mix model for TB control, resulting in a 40 percent increase in case detection rates. The model was adopted and scaled throughout India.

Expertise

• Market intelligence and health market development in private sector and mixed health systems
• Health policy and financing to improve access of disadvantaged populations to health care Management and supervision
• Family planning; reproductive health; reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health; and infectious disease control

Key Projects

• Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector Plus
• Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector
• Market-based Partnerships for Health
• Private Sector Partnerships-One

Publications

• The Private Sector’s Contributions to Family Planning Market Growth
• Factors Influencing the Private Sector's Contributions to Family Planning Market Growth: A Synthesis of Six Country Analyses
• Public-Private Partnerships for Family Planning Commodities
• Social Marketing HIP brief

Countries Served In

• Afghanistan, Cambodia, India, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan, Rwanda, and Uganda