WS 13 - Capacity Building in Health Research in Low-Resource Settings

There is a wide range of initiatives, national as well as multi-lateral, aiming at strengthening health research capacity in resource limited countries, in particular on the African continent. Many of these initiatives generate important and noticeable results, but often in isolation and with little planning for long-term sustainability.

Coordination between different funders is mostly lacking, or modest at best, and the different programs are often developed and implemented without consideration of mutual reinforcement, leading inadvertently to competition, duplication or repetition. There is currently no easy way to access, deposit, and share information about existing or upcoming programs and events, which would allow individual organizations to design a new initiative that is compatible with existing initiatives. The end result is too often overcrowding of projects and funder-driven initiatives in a few institutions, countries and activity areas, while other locations and capacity gaps are completely forgotten.

This session will explore how the current myriad of capacity building initiatives can be better coordinated among funders, and between funders and recipient countries. The session will bring together a diverse group of organizations involved in different aspects of capacity strengthening, on both the demand and supply side. We will discuss whether an improved or de novo platform, such as an on-line “Open Capacity Strengthening Platform, can be established that would allow funders and implementers to share information and coordinate their efforts towards a more balanced and cost-efficient use of resources.