Skip to main content

Table 3 Intervention implemented

From: Strengthening capacity to use research evidence in health sector policy-making: experience from Kenya and Malawi

 

Increase individual capacity

Improve institutional capacity

Enhance organisational capacity

Increase supply of policy-relevant research

None as the focus of the funding call was on the ‘demand-side’ of the research-to-policy continuum and not the ‘supply-side’

Enhance capacity of policy-makers to source and use research

1. Train MoH technical staff in sourcing, appraising, synthesising and applying evidence in decision-making (5-day residential workshop)

2. Mentor and support-trained MoH staff in applying knowledge and skills acquired from the workshop above over 12-months (one-on-one monthly follow-ups, and 1-day refresher workshops every quarter)

1. Sustained advocacy with MoH top leaders on EIDM (one-on-one meetings with leaders, and annual national and regional forums with leaders on research-to-policy) to increase awareness on the important role of evidence in decision-making, and need to address institutional barriers to evidence use

2. Develop guidelines for evidence use

3. Develop health research agenda in Kenya

4. Review health research agenda in Malawi

5. Support MoHs to revive their defunct libraries, improve Internet connectivity, and subscribe to freely available databases such as Hinari

None as our intervention was resource-limited and could therefore not focus on developing broader organisational capacities

Increase networking among policy-makers and researchers

 

6. Support MoH research departments to introduce regular science-policy cafés to discuss research on urgent health issues; cafés were conducted every 6 months; 8 cafés in Kenya, 5 in Malawi

  1. EIDM evidence-informed decision-making, MoH Ministry of Health. Text in italics indicates the components of the concpetual framework where the project did not implement any interventions