Background Information
The journey started in November 2011 when the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) began a dialogue with the governance in equity in health systems’ arm of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). And in July 2012 the duo WAHO and IDRC built a cooperation which gave birth to a regional project title “West African Initiative on Capacity building through Research on Health Systems”. The purpose of the regional project is to contribute to strengthening governance for equity in health systems. The project was designed to set the foundation for producing and using rigorous and relevant evidence to strengthen equitable and sustainable health systems in West Africa through three inter-related strategies.
Through a rigorous and competitive process, 4 organisations operating in different countries in the region were shrewdly selected to be financially supported to implement the research project in their countries of operation. The organisations are: SERSAP in Burkina Faso, CPED in Nigeria, CREFDES in Senegal and Northern Polytechnic in Sierra Leone. Regional mechanisms Establishment of a Regional Advisory Committee and a mechanism for Monitoring-Learning-Evaluation) as well as national ones (Establishment of national steering committee composed of relevant stakeholders in connection with the topic of the study) were also set up to guide, monitor, support and learn throughout the implementation period of the regional project.
