Moving MNCH evidence into policy in West Africa (MEP) : lessons learned

The presentation provides an overview of factors that relate to health equity, and the assessment of health equity, defined as “…the absence of unfair and avoidable health differences among social groups.” The objectives were to share lessons learned from Knowledge Translation Platforms in Africa, and to become familiar with key concepts and frameworks in Knowledge Transfer and Exchange; Evidence-Informed Health Policy-making; and Evidence-Based Health Practices

Moving MNCH evidence into policy in West Africa (MEP) : instructions for group work

This brief presentation provides guidelines for dissemination of research through stakeholder meetings; how to prepare for meetings and policy discussions; how to facilitate discussion; and prior to the meetings, how to analyze research for critical messages and priority actions

Situational analysis for moving MNCH evidence into policy in West Africa (MEP) : knowledge transfer and exchange : WAHO institutional assessment synthesis of country assessments

The regional West African Health Organization (WAHO) workshop defines knowledge translation as: “the dynamic and iterative process that includes the synthesis, dissemination, exchange, and ethically sound application of knowledge to improve health, provide more effective services and products, and strengthen the healthcare system.” The presentation also defines modes of knowledge transfer such as diffusion, dissemination, implementation, and research utilization and illustrates how these fit within evidence informed health policy. One of the key capacity constraints of policymakers in West Africa is the inability to effectively use research evidence in policy-making and implementation. The presentation is in both English and French

Regional validation workshop on the situation analysis of knowledge transfer and evidence use in maternal newborn and child health in ECOWAS region

This brief introductory presentation provides images from workshop participants and describes objectives of the Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa (IMCHA) programme

Innovation for mother and child health in Africa : moving MNCH evidence into policy in West Africa (MEP) : lessons learned

Implementation research is conducted within routine systems and real-life settings in order to improve health care and service delivery. The presentation provides an overview of the factors that are considered in implementation research towards resolving intervention issues in health equity and resource distribution. It provides references and links to case studies

Analyse de la situation du transfert et de l’échange de connaissances au profit de la santé maternelle et néonatale en Afrique de l’Ouest

Version anglaise disponible dans la Bibliothèque numérique du CRD

Situational analysis of knowledge transfer and exchange for mother, newborn and child health in West Africa

French version available in IDRC Digital LibraryThe summary of the multi-country situational analysis of knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) for maternal newborn and child health (MNCH) was commissioned by the project “Moving Evidence to Policy for MNCH (MEP)” in West Africa. It is meant to inform strategic choices within the West African Health Organization (WAHO) as a knowledge brokerage institution that promotes evidence-informed health policy-making (EIHP) and evidence-based health practices (EBHP). While health sector development policy documents and MNCH strategic plans value evidence-to-policy efforts, financial resources allocation to achieve this are lacking. The report details survey results and analysis of data

Training Cameroonian researchers on pragmatic knowledge translation trials: a workshop report

Limited health research capacity in one of the factors that prevents developing countries from attaining  optimal health outcomes and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. We report here, the details of a  workshop on pragmatic knowledge translation trials for Cameroonian researchers, the material covered and additional resources to support capacity development. At the end of this workshop, knowledge gains were noted and participants were able to initiate proposals for funding. These proposals were aimed at improving the clinical management of diabetes, hypertension and malaria.Key words: Pragmatic trials, knowledge translation, capacity building, Cameroon, worksho

Digital health information technology utilization for enhanced health services delivery in Africa: Unravelling barriers to adoption among Primary healthcare providers

In tandem with the current drive to achieve the SDG 2030 goals, the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is been projected as a strong propelling strategy with key indicators, all aimed at achieving universal access to health services without having to endure financial difficulties in individual countries. Currently, Africa is lagging in meeting the targets of the UHC with between 5% -25% coverage across countries. Adoption of new innovations are critical for the actualization of Universal Health Coverage in Africa. Digital health technology offers one of such novel approaches to providing quality healthcare services and can help countries achieve the Universal Health Coverage targets. It has been suggested that digital health provides an opportunity to overcome the longstanding problems of inefficiency of health information gathering, sharing, and access. In addition, literature is already replete with various factors that can aid countries to achieve UHC and one of such factors is the urgency of generating valid and quality evidence to inform decision-making. Although the Primary Health Care remains at the core of the achievement of Universal Health Coverage, the utilization of digital health technologies remains very poor at the grassroots in Africa and this poses a huge barrier to effectiveness and quality of healthcare delivery. Given the foregoing, it is obvious that there is an urgent need to understand the landscapes, issues and barriers to utilization of digital health at the Primary Health Care levels. However, there remains a paucity of data to support evidence-based decision making about full implementation of digital health services across the continent while also taking into cognisance the peculiarities of individual countries. Hence, there is a critical need to determine the current levels of knowledge, skills, attitude, practice and readiness to adopt digital health in service delivery by healthcare workers at the Primary Health Care levels across the continent. The generation of such data from major stakeholders such as health workers and health managers, providers among others will provide important evidence needed for attaining optimal utilization of digital health in the context of health for all.  Summarily, a clear understanding of the contextual and implementation bottlenecks highlighted from such assessment(s), especially as it relates to individual African countries, will go a long way to guide decisions to address the low utilization of digital health technologies in health services delivery in Africa. Source of funding This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. Acknowledgement The authors acknowledge the support of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Ibadan and contributions of Prof. G.R.E. E Ana, Prof. M.K.C. Sridhar, Dr. E.C. Uwalaka, Dr. O.T. Okareh and Dr. O.M. Morakinyo, in the writing of this paper CO is supported by Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) which is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York (Grant No--B 8606.R02), Sida (Grant No:54100029), the DELTAS Africa Initiative (Grant No: 107768/Z/15/Z). Conflict of interest statement The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the writing of this paper. Author contributions CO: Conceptualization; CO, PO and OF: Writing- Original draft preparation, CO, PO and OF: Writing- Reviewing and Editing