Donela Besada is an epidemiologist and health economist working in the areas of maternal and child health services, HIV, TB, mental health, and human resources for health. Her work has included a multi-country evaluation of an integrated health system strengthening initiative as well as a programme focusing on strengthening community and facility based service delivery in the area of prevention of mother to child HIV transmission, an economic evaluation of decentralized MDR-TB services, a costing effectiveness study of m-health technology in Malawi and South Africa to support adherence to chronic medication, an investment case for community health workers in South Africa to help identify the optimal scope of practice and resources required for effective implementation of the programme, and most recently costing current mental health services and developing an investment case to scale up mental health care in South Africa to achieve UHC and understanding the human resource requirements to prioritize HIV treatment scale-up. She is currently a PhD candidate at King’s College London where her research is focusing on the development and application of a cost-effectiveness methodology for multi-sectoral investments for mental health services in South Africa.