Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa: Strengthening Research Capacity

The Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa program aims to assist targeted developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa improve maternal, newborn, and child health. This project will provide the funding to develop and manage the program.

About the program
The program is part of the Global Health Research Initiative, a collaboration between Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and IDRC. It represents a joint investment of $36 million over seven years to target maternal and child health in nine countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan, and Tanzania.

Better health policy and research
These funds will support two health policy and research organizations. They will also be used to fund 20 implementation research teams. The teams will conduct research to strengthen equitable health systems to improve maternal, newborn, and child health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa. The health policy and research organizations will act as knowledge brokers, directly linking the implementation research teams' research to national and regional policy-making.

Better results for maternal, newborn, and child health
The research program's objectives include:
-address critical knowledge gaps in research, policy, and practice around primary healthcare delivery to mothers and children in targeted countries of sub-Saharan Africa;
-generate knowledge and tangible solutions that can be scaled up to achieve better health outcomes and improved health equity for women and children;
-strengthen the relevance and timeliness of maternal and newborn child health research and the uptake of results into policy and practice; and
-build successful sub-Saharan African/Canadian research collaborations that are equitable, mutually beneficial, and that strengthen institutional and individual capacity for implementing and using research.