Anja Smith

Anja Smith joined Cenfri in 2008 as one of its founding staff members. After spending eight years of her career consulting in the area of access to financial services and financial inclusion (four of which were with Cenfri), she returned to Stellenbosch University, on a full-time basis to pursue a PhD in economics – which she was awarded in March 2016. Her PhD focused on topics related to the financing, delivery and user acceptability of healthcare in South Africa. While reading for her PhD, Anja served as a non-executive director on Cenfri’s board (2012 to 2016). Her post-doctoral research has examined questions related to the measurement of quality of healthcare and access to contraception and reproductive care for vulnerable women in South Africa.

Anja is now assisting Cenfri as an external associate on a number of projects. She is also a researcher for Research on Socio-Economic Policy (ReSEP) at Stellenbosch University’s Economics Department.

Anja served on our board from February 2011 to October 2016.

Qualifications

• PhD in economics, Stellenbosch University
• Master’s in economics (cum laude), Stellenbosch University
• Honours in economics (cum laude), Stellenbosch University
• Bachelor’s in value and policy studies (cum laude), Stellenbosch University