Benedict Makara has over ten years of experience in both private and public sectors, mainly specializing in insurance and procurement, respectively. Currently, he is working as a Procurement Expert under the Public Financial Management Reform Project of the Government of Lesotho. His duties include a timely procurement of consulting services, contract negotiations and contract management with the ultimate objective to build capacity of public servants, which will translate into the improved service delivery in the Public Sector. He is also a doctoral student in Economics with a concentration in Health Economics and research interests in healthcare financing, dynamic modeling, computational modeling and schemes design issues. Benedict is driven by his passion to promote social justice for marginalized groups and hopes to be a game changer in his community. Upon completion of Mandela Washington Fellowship, Benedict plans to continue his work under the government of Lesotho and, at the community level, establish a foundation that will provide scholarships to poor but bright students in order to break intergenerational poverty. He will further design, establish and administer a healthcare financing scheme for the low income earners in order to improve equity in healthcare finance which will, in turn, enhance health outcomes.
