Jan 2010: PEPFAR prioritises research

Nature Medicine reports on PEPFAR head Ambassador Goosby's town hall address in Dec 2009. Goosby said that operations research "used to assess the effectiveness or impact of programs, needs to play a larger part" and in the future "PEPFAR will encourage studies that involve multiple countries and coordinated methodologies". In the past, PEPFAR has heavily micro-managed the research of its grants, resulting in some universities returning its funding. It's not clear whether PEPFAR has relaxed its management practices. It has, however, committed to making PEPFAR country data more accessible to researchers.

Jan 2010: Two new articles on GHIs in Brazil and Rwanda just published in Tropical Medicine and International Health

Le Loup et al's article 'International institutions, Global health Initiatives and the challenge of sustainability: Lessons from the Brazilian AIDS Programme' reviews the World Bank AIDS programmes in Brazil from 1990s to date and offers lessons for sustainability of future AIDS programmes. Absence of NGO advocacy, local political instability, high turnover of health workers and rapid emergence of other diseases are 'red flags' marking sustainability loss. 

Kalk et al' study 'Health systems strengthening through insurance subsidies: the GFATM experience in Rwanda' reports PEPFAR and GF directly and indirectly funding salaries, with a 10x fold increase for nurses from 2003 to 2007; key indicators of health status improved during the same period; increased insurance coverage (and thus GF support) increased health utilisation rate; and insuffcient staff seriously hampering functioning of Rwanda's health system. Document summaries of these articles will be searchable shortly on our database

Jan 2010: Zambia researchers prepare for local and national dissemination of research findings

Researchers in Zambia are holding a series of dissemination events to raise awareness of their study findings (a Final Report will be uploaded to the Country Studies section of the GHIN website soon). District-level events in Mumbwa on the 15th and Kabwe on the 22^nd will be followed by a national event in Lusaka on the 29 January.

Based on the aim of the Zambia study and need to communicate the findings, the purpose of the dissemination workshops is to bring to programme implementers and policy-makers the findings in order to inform policy and programming. The workshops will provide an appropriate forum for engaging with relevant stakeholders, including government agencies such as MOH and NAC, non-government organisations and international donors. 

During this study, early and ongoing dialogue with key stakeholders has been critical in their engagement in the process.  Consulting stakeholders in the early stages and at appropriate intervals has helped ensure that the study is relevant to current needs and implementation challenges. The dissemination will be based on the final report which highlights and provides policy-relevant information and makes policy and programme-relevant recommendations.

We wish the Zambia team every success with their work.

Oct 2009: Researchers in Zambia have just produced four Policy Briefs of findings from their country study

GHIN researchers based in Zambia have produced a Policy Brief - Tracking Global HIV/AIDS Initiatives and their Effects on the Health System in Zambia - summarising their country study findings. In addition, they have produced three supplementary Policy Briefs on specific areas of Zambia's health system: Human Resources, Coordination and Scaling Up 

 Oct 2009: GHIN researchers in Peru have just produced a policy brief of findings from Phase 2 of their country study

GHIN researchers based in Lima have just published a Policy Brief - 'Lessons Learned from the Collaboration with the Global Fund for AIDS-related Projects in Peru'. Please visit the Peru Country Study page to view two recently published journal articles (where there is also a link to a Spanish-language version). The research team has also just had a new article accepted for publication with the journal Global Public Health - further details to follow shortly.

 July 2009: GHIN members present posters at the 5th IAS conference in Cape Town

The 5th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention was held in Cape Town from 19-22nd July. A number of GHIN members attended and you can view their presentations and posters below: 

Regien Biesma from Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) gave an oral presentation The Impact of Donor Agency Funding Strategies on National Responses: The case of Lesotho 

Researchers from the Health Policy Analysis Unit of the Center for Health System Development in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, presented two posters:

• The role of communities for increasing access to HIV/AIDS services for vulnerable groups in the Kyrgyz Republic, and 
• ‘Impact of Global Fund grants on implementation of the National HIV/AIDS Program in the Kyrgyz Republic'.  
• Johanna Hanefeld from the London School of Tropical Medicine presented a poster: 
• The Impact of Changes in Global Donor Strategies on Country programmes: Lessons Learnt form the End of the World Bank's Multi-Country AIDS Programme (MAP) in Zambia

 July 2009: The Kyrgyz team has just completed their final report: ‘Tracking Global HIV/AIDS Initiatives and their Impact on the Health System: the experience of the Kyrgyz Republic’

The Kyrgyz team has just completed their final report ‘Tracking Global HIV/AIDS Initiatives and their Impact on the Health System: the experience of the Kyrgyz Republic’. This study, conducted by researchers from the Health Policy Analysis Unit of the Center for Health System Development in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, assesses the effects for HIV/AIDS of the Global Fund and the World Bank’s Central Asian AIDS Project (CAAP) at national and sub-national levels, including the effects on HIV/AIDS service scale-up coordination, human resources, and access to HIV/AIDS services. A Policy Brief summarising the findings of the Report has also been uploaded to the Kyrgyz country study page  

 July 2009: GHIN country teams produce country case summaries for the WHO Maximizing Positive Synergies initiative

Maximizing Positive Synergies is a WHO initiative which aims to commission, collate and synthesise evidence on interactions between GHIs and country health systems and to use this to inform global and national health policy and development.  Positive Synergies was launched in May 2008, two years after the establishment of GHIN.  Findings were presented at a high level meeting of ministers of health in Venice Italy, June 22-3, hosted by Italy on behalf of the G8 Group of countries.  Details can be found on WHO website.

Eight GHIN country studies have contributed case summaries and recommendations to the G8 process.  The WHO will finalise a report with recommendations to be published at the G8 heads of state meeting in Italy in July. Participating GHIN country teams include China, Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Peru, South Africa and Zambia. These country case summaries can be found on the country specific pages of this site. The academic case studies book will soon be available.

June 2009: GHIN Writing Workshop, London 

GHIN hosted a Writing Workshop in London from 23-25th June. Country researchers benefited from peer review feedback on Working Papers, and also discussed opportunities for cross-cutting analysis. Ruairi Brugha from RCSI presented findings from a comparative study of GHI effects on Human Rresources in Malawi and Zambia.

 June 2009: GHIN contributes to Lancet policy piece “An assessment of interactions between global health initiatives and country health systems”

This multi-authored policy piece, by the WHO Maximizing Positive Synergies Collaborative Group and published on 19 June 2009, reviews existing data, and includes 15 new studies that were submitted to the WHO to describe the nature of the interplay between country health systems and GHIs. Some general recommendations and action points are made, for international partners, governments and other stakeholders. Many GHIN members are co-authors with WHO and other global stakeholders. This policy piece can be accessed at The Lancet Website.

 June 2009: Systematic Review of evidence on GHIs

GHIN coordinators have recently had a systematic review of evidence on GHIs published in the journal Health Policy and Planning entitled “The effects of global health initiatives on country health systems: a review of the evidence from HIV/AIDS control”.This paper reviews country level evidence about the impact of PEPFAR, Global Fund and PEPFAR on country health systems, drawing on 31 original country and cross-country articles and reports between 2002 and 2007. This article can be found at: http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/czp025