Framing the Research Component of the African Health Systems Initiative (AHSI)

A Preliminary Consultation

At the request of the Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI), the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research (CCGHR) coordinated a consultation to explore the potential research themes and funding criteria for a research component to be included in the African Health Systems Initiative (AHSI).

Introduction

As part of the action agenda, the government of Canada recently announced a ten-year “African Health Systems Initiative” (AHSI) to support African efforts to strengthen health systems, improve health outcomes and make concrete progress toward the health related Millennium Development Goals. Decision-makers, policy advocates and health service managers need knowledge generated by health systems research to ensure that their strategies address systems barriers and constraints, and contribute to substantial improvements in health outcomes.

Building upon a CIDA consultation (managed by the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research - CCGHR) in March 2006 regarding “knowledge-based health systems development”, the Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI) requested a second consultation focused on the research component to be included in the “Africa Health Systems Initiative” (AHSI). Specifically, the consultation’s objectives were to explore the potential research themes and funding criteria for the AHSI research component.

The goal of the AHSI research component is to support African research partnerships to provide answers to relevant operational issues and needs of African health systems programming that are aligned with African government research strategies and priorities; and demonstrate a clear link between research, policy and action to improve health programming in Africa.

The consultation conducted by the CCGHR addressed two questions:

1. What are the potential research themes/areas?
2. What funding eligibility criteria should be used, and what models considered?

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• Report - A Preliminary Consultation [PDF 90 KB]
• Survey - Health Systems Research: Support to African Research Partnerships through the African Health Systems Initiative (AHSI) [Word 67 KB]

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