Martha Kwataine
Martha Kwataine is a Malawian health and human rights activist, and the founder and former executive director of the Malawi Health Equity Network.
In October 2006, Kwataine founded the Malawi Health Equity Network, and became its executive director. MHEN is an "independent alliance of organisations and individuals promoting equity and quality" in health care, and is based in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi.
In 2010, a MHEN report showed that the government's health department had spent 50-60% of its budget on activities at its headquarters, rather than on facilities across the country. Kwataine commented, "This is money spent on allowances and four-wheel drive vehicles that race in the streets of the capital, yet 80 percent of Malawians are in the rural areas where health problems are forever acute".
In 2012, Kwataine moved to Washington D.C. in the United States to lobby the US government for help and support.
In November 2015, Kwataine unexpectedly resigned as executive director of the Malawi Health Equity Network. She is reported to have left MEHN to take up a job with ActionAid.
