Lucien Kouassi Kouakou is an economist and Specialist in Management of Organizations. He also has a higher Diploma in Total Quality Management with a bias in Health Management. He joined IPPF ARO in November 2008 from the MA of Cote d’Ivoire where he was the Executive Director from 2004 to 2008 after having spent over 10 years in SRHR programmes and projects Management and in operational research within the same MA. Based on his wide experience, Lucien has significantly contributed to the reduction of the MA’s debt and improved the management of the Association and also provided on behalf of IPPFARO, technical assistance to many MAs in various technical areas such as strategic planning, MA administration and management, Quality of Care, Gender Rights and Sexuality including training of trainers, Commodity security planning and SRH programming.

Lucien has played many roles as a consultant or resource person in his country (Cote d’Ivoire) to review, evaluate and develop national policies and programmes on Gender, SRHR and strategy for poverty reduction. He was also a trainer on SRH Programme and Quality Management at the University of Cote d’Ivoire at the Faculty of Medicine and on Health Quality Insurance at the African Centre for Management and Senior Management Staff capacity building (CAMPC).

Prior to this new appointment, Lucien was the Team Leader for the West & Central Sub-region.  He has worked at IPPF ARO as the Emergency Response Advisor (for 9 months) and the Accreditation, Governance and Emergency Response Advisor (six months).   As such, Lucien Kouakou is a pure product of IPPF system. He has worked for a long time with many of the MAs in the west and central sub region even in the eastern region to provide technical assistance.