Centre for Health Systems in Fragile and Conflict Affected Settings

The Centre for Health Systems in Fragile and Conflict Affected Settings brings together the interdisciplinary work of over 50 experts at KIT Royal Tropical Institute in the area of global health. We aim to empower people, strengthen health systems and improve universal access to quality healthcare in fragile settings. 

Our team offers methods that account for the contextual complexity of fragile settings: starting from an in-depth understanding of the root causes of the challenges we focus on strengthening domestic or local institutions and actors that can drive change. Our work is unique in that it spans from applied research, monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) to technical assistance, capacity development and training.

Approximately a quarter of the world’s population live in fragile settings: countries or territories affected by violence, major economic instability, and precarious governance, unable or unwilling to ensure basic goods and services for (part of) its population. As a result, these settings are particularly vulnerable to acute shocks, such as natural disasters or disease outbreaks. Nearly eighty percent of all people in extreme poverty live in fragile settings, and those living in these settings have, on average, poorer health outcomes. In other words, globally, poor health is increasingly concentrated in fragile settings. 

Improving health outcomes in fragile settings means not just improving service delivery but also durably strengthening the institutions and systems in which these services are embedded, strengthening citizen’s rights and enhancing the responsiveness and inclusiveness of governments. On this webpage you can find an overview of our work, links to our current and former projects on diverse themes of health and development in fragile settings, a broad range of resources and dissemination materials, and an introduction to our team.