Dr Awad Mataria is Director of Universal Health Coverage/Health Systems at the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean. Dr Mataria has more than 15 years experience in health system strengthening, health economics and health financing.

For the last 10 years, he has been supporting countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Region to reform their health financing systems to move towards universal health coverage.

Dr Mataria has a PhD in Health Economics and a Masters degree in Health System Analysis, following his undergraduate degree in Pharmacy. His areas of expertise are: universal health coverage; health systems financing and organization; social health insurance; using economics in health care priority setting; measuring the benefits of health care using stated preferences techniques; economic evaluation of health care interventions; and national health accounts.

Dr Mataria has had several publications in high-impact journals, including Journal of Health Economics, Health Economics and The Lancet, and has presented at many international and regional conferences.