Augustine Asante is a health economist with over 15 years of experience researching health financing equity and health systems in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). He has worked extensively in the Asia-Pacific region and sub-Saharan Africa, evaluating complex health systems interventions, including assessing the impact of health financing and human resources for health reforms on equity of access to health services. A significant part of his research focuses on evaluating how the burden of paying for health care and the benefits from public spending on health are distributed across different population groups. These evaluations seek to provide the critical evidence needed by governments to reform their health financing systems as they move towards universal health coverage (UHC).

He has led the implementation of large health financing and systems projects in several Asia-Pacific and sub-Saharan African countries, including Indonesia, Cambodia, Fiji, Timor-Leste, Rwanda and Ghana. Dr Asante has consulted for key multilateral and bilateral organisations, including the World Bank, WHO and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). He was the healthcare financing project coordinator for the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) in 2019-2020.