The University of Sheffield
Public Health

Amy Barnes

amy barnes

(Currently on Maternity Leave)

Section of Public Health
School of Health and Related Research
University of Sheffield
Regent Court
30 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 4DA

Office: Room 2037, 2nd Floor, Regent Court

Tel: +44(0)114 222 0875
Fax: +44(0)114 272 4095

Biography

I joined ScHARR in December 2010 as a Lecturer in International Health Policy and Management, having previously been in the Department of Politics (also at the University of Sheffield) completing PhD research into the politics of partnership and aid for health.

My research has focused on how (and why) the idea of partnership features in global aid policy and the impacts that certain partnership management practices (contracts, targets and performance-based funding) have on local health governance; working in particular in Zambia.  I have studied the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and have also looked at the way in which Sector-wide Approaches (SWAps) for health and budget support operate as health aid mechanisms.

I am currently working on a project looking at the role and participation of African actors in global health governance (see below) and am increasingly interested in issues of social justice in the UK and internationally, as well as the way in which 'evidence' is used, valued and applied in policy processes.

I try to work at the disciplinary interface between public health, public policy, management development studies and politics.

Before embarking on my academic career, I worked at one of the UK Research Councils and at Imperial College London in health research management, where I spent  time working for the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative.

Research Interests

My research interests include: global health governance and international aid; citizen participation in health policy/health systems; the role of values and use of evidence in policy processes; politics of health management.

Teaching Interests

I teach on various different modules within ScHARR's suite of MPH courses about international health policy, health systems and management (including:  HAR697 Policy, Practice and Health Systems and HAR82 Leading and Managing Healthcare Systems.

I am keen to integrate the learning from my research into my teaching practice, and have tried to do this by developing a health policy 'simulation' that explores the roles of different actors, process and power.

PhD Supervision

I am interested in supervising research students in the following areas: international health aid, policy relating to health inequalities/social justice, participation and health policy, the politics of health management, health partnerships, the use of evidence in health policy processes.

Professional Activities

Current Projects

I am currrently working with Garrett Wallace Brown (Sheffield University), Sophie Harman (City University) and research partners in Zambia, Tanzania and South Africa on the role and participation of African actors in global health governance; looking specifically at how African actors are involved in World Bank and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria performance-based financing initiatives for health (funded through EQUINET/IDRC Global Health Diplomacy grants.

Publications

Barnes A. and Parkhurst J. (forthcoming in 2012).  Can global health policy be depoliticised? A critique of global calls for evidence-based policy.  In: (eds) Brown G.W., Yamey G and Wamala S.  (2012) Global Health Policy, Cambridge: Wiley-Blackwell.

Barnes A. (in preparation).  Governing global health assistance through performance-based funding: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the 'creative destruction' of the health system in Zambia.

Barnes A. (2011) Aid and health systems development: Understanding complexity, context and socio-political relationships.  Harewelle International Newsletter, 19th September 2011.

Barnes A. and Brown G.W. (2011) The Idea of Partnership within the Millenium Development Goals: Context, Instrumentality and the Normative Demands of Partnership, Third World Quarterly, 31 (2), 165-180.

Barnes A. and Brown G.W. (2011) The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: Expertise, Accountability and the Depoliticisation of Global Health Governance, in O. Williams & S. Rushton (eds) Global Health Partnerships and Private Foundations: New Frontiers in Health and Health Governance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Barnes, A. (2008) `Funding Civil Society: Foreign Assistance and NGO Development in Russia´, by Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom. Development Policy Review, 27 (2): 231-232.

Barnes A. 'Public/private 'investment' in global health: the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, (neo)liberal rationality and the "creative destruction" of local health governance in practice'.  Paper prepared for the British International Studies Association Global Health Working Group, University of Sussex. 29 June 2011.  

Barnes A. 'The Managerial Logic and Governance Effects of Performance-Based Funding:  A critique of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in Zambia'. Paper presented at the International Conference on Global Health Governance & African Health Systems, Centre for African Studies, University of Edinburgh. 31 May 2011.