Table 3 Overview of priority stakeholders, key characteristics and rationale of IKT strategies

Ethiopia: The Ethiopian IKT strategy focused on strengthening and establishing partnerships with policy-makers at the Ethiopian Ministry of Health (MoH), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) active in NCD healthcare delivery, advocacy organisations, and other academic institutions in order to: (a) share project and research updates with those active in the NCD space, (b) collaborate on capacity-building activities for strengthening EIDM, and (c) catalyse the establishment of a national NCD research network that integrates the efforts of universities, the MoH, and other stakeholders to prevent and control NCDs, as well as to bridge the evidence-policy-practice gap

Malawi: The MoH’s NCD department sets the national NCD research agenda and the ministry’s knowledge translation platform (KTP) facilitates a dialogue between policy-makers, researchers and frontline clinicians for EIDM. These two departments were therefore defined as priority stakeholders to: (a) strengthen the existing relationship with policy-makers in those two MoH departments and, (b) facilitate the implementation of the CEBHA + activities. The CEBHA + in Malawi collaborated with the KTP on evidence synthesis, capacity-building, and dissemination of research results

Rwanda: The site-specific IKT strategy prioritised engagement with the MoH, Rwanda Biomedical Center (the implementing agency of the MoH), Rwanda Utility Regulatory Authority, Rwanda Transport Development Agency, the Ministry of Public Service and Labor, the Ministry of Sports, and the Traffic Police Department. The rationale for this prioritisation was to (a) facilitate the project implementation process and (b) to collaborate on research activities. IKT activities hence included convening of stakeholder meetings to introduce the CEBHA + project, to report on research activities, to share (preliminary) results, and to receive feedback; co-facilitating data collectors’ trainings; as well as collaborating on manuscript write-up, capacity-building, issue brief development, and dissemination

South Africa: The main aim of the South African IKT strategy was to increase the uptake of research evidence in policy and practice. Although the team identified many stakeholders, priority stakeholders were NCD directors in the national and provincial departments of health responsible for developing NCD policies. CEBHA + staff at all three South African institutions had existing relationships with these decision-makers. Activities included stakeholder meetings at various points of the project, an NCD symposium to bring together all stakeholders in 2020, policy dialogues in 2022, conference presentations, peer-reviewed publications, sharing of research results through webinars, issue briefs, emails and in-person meetings

Uganda: The Ugandan IKT strategy built on the team’s long-standing engagements and experience in road safety work. With the introduction of the IKT approach, the team formalised the engagements with stakeholders and meetings with key stakeholders were subsequently documented which had not been done earlier. With IKT, stakeholder engagements moved away from being more individualistic to institution-based to address staff turnover. Initial communications with stakeholders happened through formal letters which were followed up with phone calls or physical visits. In-person meetings were convened for planning or dissemination