Vartuni Dayaratna is the Associate Director for International Projects at NORC. She is a seasoned program manager, with 14 years of experience working in the international development field. She currently serves as Program Manager/Team Leader for the Millennium Challenge Account-Honduras impact evaluation and, as such, oversees all aspects of the project, which uses experimental and quasi-experimental methodologies, as well as qualitative methods, to evaluate different components of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)-funded program.
Dayaratna also serves as the Program Manager for the MCC Lesotho impact evaluation of health sector and water infrastructure projects, and is the Team Leader for an impact and process evaluation of a foundation-funded food security program that provides seed vouchers to rice farmers in Sri Lanka. She is well-versed in the technical subject matter of the types of experimental and quasi-experimental designs that form the core of impact evaluations, and has been involved in the various data collection activities related to impact evaluations. Before joining NORC, Dayaratna served as regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean for a multiyear U. S. Agency for International Devlopment-funded health project. In this capacity, she managed and provided technical direction to seven country programs on family planning/reproductive health, maternal-child health, and HIV/AIDS with a combined operating budget of more than $8 million.
Dayaratna has also worked on addressing operational policy barriers to family planning and maternal health services in Ukraine, Romania, and Peru; overseen studies to identify alternative financing mechanisms for reproductive health and maternal-child health services in Peru and in Rajasthan, India; managed and provided extensive technical assistance on a multiyear regional contraceptive security initiative in the Latin American and Caribbean region; worked closely with the Ministry of Health in Ukraine to cost their National Reproductive Health Program; and conducted cost recovery and pricing policy analyses for contraceptives in Ecuador and Ghana.
Dayaratna is fluent in Spanish and Sinhalese.