Publications

Since 2017, PERFORM2Scale, a research consortium with partners from seven countries in Africa and Europe, has steered the implementation and scale-up of a district-level health management strengthening intervention in Ghana, Malawi and Uganda. This article presents PERFORM2Scale’s theory of change (ToC) and reflections upon and adaptations of the ToC over time. The article aims to contribute to understanding the benefits and challenges of using a ToC-based approach for monitoring and evaluating the scale-up of health system strengthening interventions, because there is limited documentation of this in the literature.

Maternal mortality continues to be a major public health concern in Ghana where women still die from preventable maternal deaths. Several factors contribute to the high maternal mortality in the country including delay in seeking skill birth attendance, sociocultural factors among others. This study aims to analyze the role of gender in accessing skilled birth attendance in Ghana.

Worldwide, the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 disproportionally affect vulnerable groups in society. This paper assesses responses to, and impacts of, the pandemic among mobile migrant populations who work in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) in Suriname and French Guiana. These populations are characterized by poverty, informal or illegal status, and limited access to health care and information. Field research in Suriname (November 2020–January 2021) and French Guiana (January, May, June 2021) included qualitative interviews, informal conversations and observations, and a quantitative survey with 361 men and women in ASGM communities.

The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock provided research-based solutions to help smallholder farmers, pastoralists, and agro-pastoralists transition to sustainable and resilient livelihoods, and to profitable enterprises that will help feed future generations. The aim of the program was to increase the productivity and profitability of livestock agri-food systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk, and eggs more available and affordable across low-and middle-income countries.

The CocoaTarget project aims to develop and strengthen climate-smart strategies in cocoa production systems to improve the livelihoods of up to 800,000 Ghanaian smallholder farmers who depend on cocoa for income. The project uses a citizen science approach – which involves on-farm testing of cocoa varieties – so that farmers and their communities constantly update their knowledge on cocoa varieties which are better adapted to changing local climate; and use this knowledge for decision- making in sapling production and plantation renewal to manage current and future climate risk.

The evaluation of the PERFORM project demonstrated that a management strengthening intervention was effective in enabling district-level, health management teams to improve health district management based on local evidence, solve workforce performance problems and improve service delivery. The Perform2Scale programme scaled-up this intervention in Malawi, Ghana and Uganda.

The reduction of post-harvest losses (PHLs) has been identified as a key pathway to food and nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa. However, despite policy prioritisation, knowledge about the severity of PHLs remains scant, especially when it comes to nutrient-dense crops such as African nightshade and bush beans. This paper identifies loss hotspots, causes and effects throughout the value chains of nightshade and bush beans in eastern Uganda.

The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock provided research-based solutions to help smallholder farmers, pastoralists, and agro-pastoralists transition to sustainable and resilient livelihoods, and to profitable enterprises that will help feed future generations. An important component of the CRP Livestock research agenda is to demonstrate how livestock research can translate into impact through livestock value chain transformation in four selected priority countries, namely Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam.

Pakistan’s national tuberculosis control programme is among the many programmes worldwide that value the importance of subnational tuberculosis (TB) burden estimates to support disease control efforts, but do not have reliable estimates.TB Hackathon: Development and Comparison of Five Models to Predict Subnational Tuberculosis Prevalence in Pakistan. Against this backdrop, the Pakistan NTP partnered with KIT epidemiologists to launch a virtual hackathon to estimate the subnational TB burden in Pakistan.

In 2015, Nestlé launched a program focusing on the ‘better-off farmers’, called the Elite Farmer program. The ‘elite farmers’ were hand-picked from ordinary farmers in villages, based on a number of selection criteria, and intensively trained and coached. The aim was to empower elite farmers to unleash their potential, both in cocoa production and in alternative income generating activities, ultimately achieving a living income and becoming a lighthouse for others.

Over the past two decades, there has been a considerable increase in the number of tools to generate, analyse and use data and evidence to support discussion and decision-making by National TB Programmes (NTPs) and their partners. Increasingly, countries are developing more robust national surveillance systems, implementing multiple health surveys, and using data analysis and visualisation tools in policy, planning, programming and investment decisions. However, as more data are generated, and data analysis tools evolve and increase in number, it can be challenging to understand how, why and when these tools should be implemented.

Young People’s perspectives and decision-making regarding harmful practices, sexual and gender-based violence and unintended pregnancy.