Health research at IDRC, 2000-2004 : current situation and a vision for the future

Date

2000

Authors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

IDRC, Ottawa, ON, CA

Abstract

Consultations to date indicate substantial support for new programming in the health area at IDRC, and support for research on governance/service delivery to complement the research currently supported by other PIs, particularly ECOHEALTH. Health is identified as a priority development issue in sub-Saharan Africa. Discussions with programme staff have uniformly suggested that the Centre allocate a budget for health. This budget would ensure coherence among projects, be used to encourage the PIs without health-related projects to include health issues in their programming, and leverage outside funds. Leaving the initiative up to individual PIs is seen as unworkable: “mainstreaming” cross-cutting issues such as health without allocating financial and human resources is both difficult operationally and leads to poor visibility and lack of coherence in programming. The minimal scenario - status quo plus a webpage on which to post occasional synthesis papers - is seen as unsatisfactory; support for visible and substantive contributions to health research is high. Both programme staff and our partners support research-to-policy linkages, but insist on a clear focus on equity –including social, health, economic and gender equity – and community participation as a strategy to meet our mandate of “Empowerment through knowledge”, and as a complementary strategy (to that of direct policy links ) for influencing public policy. Finally, prospects are good for developing Canadian and international financing partnerships in support of health research over the course of this CSPF.

Description

Keywords

RESEARCH PROGRAMMES, HEALTH POLICY, HEALTH SYSTEM, HEALTH SERVICES, ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE, GENDER EQUALITY, SOCIAL EQUITY, ECONOMIC EQUITY, AFRICA SOUTH OF SAHARA

Citation

DOI