Population Council Research that makes a difference

Mary Thole Zama

Program Officer

Mary Zama is a registered nurse trainer and midwife who has extensive experience in the public health sector in Zambia. She has played a key role in coordinating reproductive health studies, both as a trainer in family planning and in coordinating data collection.

Zama has worked for the Population Council for more than ten years on a range of studies, including enhancing contraceptive choice and improving the quality of care in the Copperbelt region of Zambia. The Council’s work in the Copperbelt has included management and evaluation of family planning and reproductive health training programs for providers and their communities in eight periurban and rural districts of Copperbelt Province. In this project, Zama has had an integral role in capacity-building activities for a variety of providers at both health facility and community levels to ensure sustainability of the interventions at all levels. She also has been involved in providing support to an emergency contraception and a rape/defilement study in the Copperbelt.

Additional projects Zama has contributed to in Zambia include the pilot project for syndromic management of STIs and the prevention and provision of HIV/AIDS services in the workplace. She also has been involved in providing support for the PEPFAR SGBV Special Initiative in Rwanda and Uganda.