ODI [to 23 April 2016]
http://www.odi.org/media

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News | 21 April 2016
Manufacturing more than doubles in sub-Saharan Africa, despite fall in share of GDP – new report
New ODI research finds manufacturing production in sub-Saharan Africa has more than doubled between 2005 and 2014

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News | 19 April 2016
China the largest new aid donor in some of the world’s poorer countries – new report
In an analysis of aid flows to nine lower income and lower-middle income countries, China accounted for at least half of all non-traditional development finance

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Developing export-based manufacturing in sub-Saharan Africa
Research reports and studies | April 2016 | Neil Balchin, Stephen Gelb, Jane Kennan, Hope Martin, Dirk Willem te Velde and Carolin Williams
This paper describes how production, employment, trade and investment in the manufacturing sectors in nine sub-Saharan African countries has increased over the last decade.

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Impact evaluation for portfolio programmes on policy influence
Working and discussion papers | April 2016 | Jessica Mackenzie, Simon Hearn
What can we learn from the Poverty Reduction Support Facility about evaluating portfolio programmes that aim to influence policy?

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An age of choice for development finance: evidence from country case studies
Research reports and studies | April 2016 | Annalisa Prizzon, Romilly Greenhill, Shakira Mustapha
There are now more development finance providers than ever before. This report explores the perspectives of country governments on this new age of choice.

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Age of choice: Viet Nam in the new development finance landscape
Research reports and studies | April 2016 | Annalisa Prizzon, Maya Schmaljohann
This report examines how Viet Nam manages the new development finance landscape.

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Age of choice: Lao People’s Democratic Republic in the new development finance landscape
Research reports and studies | April 2016 | Romilly Greenhill, Shakira Mustapha
This report explores how Lao PDR manages the new development finance landscape.

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Age of choice: Uganda in the new development finance landscape
Research reports and studies | April 2016 | Cathal Long, Fiona Davies, Martin Wabwire
This report examines how Uganda manages the new development finance landscape.

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Age of choice: Kenya in the new development finance landscape
Research reports and studies | April 2016 | Annalisa Prizzon, Tom Hart
This report examines how Kenya manages the new development finance landscape.

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The AIIB and investment in action on climate change
Working and discussion papers | April 2016 | Darius Nassiry and Smita Nakhooda
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has a unique opportunity to take a bold approach to the expansion of renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure in Asia.

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Non-state security providers and political formation in South Sudan: the case of Western Equatoria’s Arrow Boys
Research reports and studies | April 2016 | Mareike Schomerus
This paper analyses the impact of the Arrow Boys militia and the Zande King on security and governance formation in South Sudan.

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Food prices: March 2016 update
Research reports and studies | April 2016 | Steve Wiggins and Sharada Keats
Food price updates track international prices of key cereals and comment on events in markets that affect them. This update reports events in the first quarter of 2016.

World Economic Forum [to 23 April 2016]
https://agenda.weforum.org/news/

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News 19 Apr 2016
Banks, Start-Ups, Regulators Urge Common Response to Fintech
:: In a newly released paper, executives from large banks, start-ups and regulators including Western Union, UBS, HSBC, Ripple and Bank of England unite around recommendations to sustain the rise of fintech
:: Their recommendations focus on preservation of financial stability, ethical use of customer data and suitability of existing regulatory standards
:: The paper is part of the World Economic Forum’s ongoing dialogue between policy-makers, industry participants, academics and society at large
:: To view the full paper, click here

:: Foundation/Major Donor Watch [posts below]
We will primarily monitor press/media releases announcing key initiatives and new research from a growing number of global foundations and donors engaged in the human rights, humanitarian response and development spheres of action. This Watch section is not intended to be exhaustive, but indicative.

Clinton Foundation [to 23 April 2016]
https://www.clintonfoundation.org/press-releases-and-statements

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Press Release
Clinton Center Hosts 3rd Annual ‘Bridge to the Future’ Free Community Festival
April 21, 2016
On April 30, 2016, the Clinton Presidential Center, along with partners Hippy Arkansas and Special Olympics Arkansas, will host the “Bridge to the Future” Festival, a free community festival that encourages students to read throughout their summer break and will include fun activities for kids…
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Press Release
Clinton Center Announces Curbside Couture Winners
April 19, 2016
On Sunday, April 17, more than 90 student designers participated in Curbside Couture, Arkansas’s largest “green” fashion show. More than 350 people sat cat-walk side and enjoyed the original designs created with recycled material…

Grameen Foundation [to 23 April 2016]
http://www.grameenfoundation.org/news-events/press-room

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04/21/2016
Grameen Foundation and ideas42 Launch Partnership to Expand Financial Inclusion in the Philippines
New Initiative Aims to Reach Thousands of Low-income People With Newly Designed Products and Networks for Financial Services; Supports Government’s National Strategy for Financial Inclusion
MANILA, PHILIPPINES – April 21, 2016 – Grameen Foundation and ideas42 yesterday launched a new partnership to support financial inclusion in the Philippines using principles from behavioral science and innovations in digital financial services using mobile phones. The initiative, funded by JPMorgan Chase Foundation, aims to reach thousands of people identified in the low-income bracket throughout the country…

…The initiative aligns with the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion launched in 2015 and builds on the success of previous programs designed to address the problems of access to and continued usage of financial products using principles from behavioral science. With research indicating that only 43 percent of adults in the Philippines have formal savings accounts, and even fewer have access to the means necessary to make regular payments, consumers encounter multiple bottlenecks preventing them from successfully following through on their intentions to open and use savings accounts and other beneficial financial services…

IKEA Foundation [to 23 April 2016]
https://www.ikeafoundation.org/category/press-releases/

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April 22, 2016
How businesses and consumers are taking action to address climate change on Earth Day
Global partnership to seize the opportunities of the Paris climate agreement and bring clean energy and prosperity to all.
New York, April 22. Today, as world leaders meet in New York to sign the Paris Agreement, the IKEA Foundation, We Mean Business and Here Now announce a partnership to bring about much needed climate action.

We Mean Business intends to speed up the pace of change by bringing more major companies on-board and advocating for policy changes. It wants to encourage governments to exceed their commitments before the agreement comes into force in 2020.

Here Now creates innovative campaigns to inspire citizens around the world to support climate change solutions. With the IKEA Foundation’s support, it will spearhead a broad range of campaigns. These include a citizen-led campaign fighting carbon emissions and air pollution in India, a programme in the UK to help people switch to clean energy at home, and a rapid-response content production initiative to bring millions more people into the climate change conversation.

The IKEA Foundation’s EUR 12.6 million grant will help to support this work with EUR 9.6 million going to We Mean Business and EUR 3 million going to Here Now…

Kellogg Foundation [to 23 April 2016]
http://www.wkkf.org/news-and-media#pp=10&p=1&f1=news

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April 21, 2016
Statement on moving the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Enterprise Summit from North Carolina
La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
As part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s (WKKF) Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation enterprise, we recently invited partners and organizations to a Summit to be held in Asheville, North Carolina in August 2016.

Since then, with the state’s recent passage of an anti-LGBT law, we issued a statement emphasizing our disappointment with North Carolina’s failure to protect all human rights. As a result, we are cancelling this four-day conference which would have brought over 500 people to North Carolina and generated millions of dollars in economic activity for the state’s local economy. The event will now be held in December and in a different state. We will provide additional details about the Summit at a later date.

Furthermore, in accordance to our institutional policies and practices, future WKKF-hosted conferences will only be held in communities where policies and practices are inclusive and protections against discrimination are upheld for all people. That said, as it relates to our named places (Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans), we will continue our work on behalf of children and families in these locations, but will follow that aforementioned policy and practice as it relates to the hosting of external (non-named place related) meetings.

Policies that deny any member of a community equal rights under the law do not reflect the values of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. These actions are counter to our belief that all children deserve to live in families where they and their parents have equal rights and opportunities to thrive.

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April 19, 2016
W.K. Kellogg Foundation announces new director of Mississippi and New Orleans Programs
BATTLE CREEK, Mich. – Dr. Rhea C. Williams-Bishop has been named the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s (WKKF) new director of Mississippi and New Orleans Programs, effective May 16, 2016.

Currently, Williams-Bishop serves as the director of the Center for Education Innovation in Jackson, Mississippi, a nonprofit education intermediary focused on impacting and transforming education through engagement and innovation…

MacArthur Foundation [to 23 April 2016]
http://www.macfound.org/

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Publication
Informing Global Education Strategies
Published April 22, 2016
A report by the Brookings Institution draws on wide-ranging research on scaling and learning, including 14 in-depth case studies from around the globe, to share how low- and middle-income countries are providing quality education. Millions Learning, created with MacArthur support, identifies 14 common ingredients of successful education programs to help countries design, deliver, finance, and enable the scaling of learning globally. A related video makes the case for why developing countries should focus on expanding access to learning.

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation [to 23 April 2016]
https://www.moore.org/news

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April 21, 2016
Architecture of DNA gatekeeper solved
Moore Foundation grantees at Caltech have produced the most detailed map yet of the massive protein machine that controls access to the DNA-containing heart of the cell.

In a new study, a team led by André Hoelz reports the successful mapping of the structure of the symmetric core of the nuclear pore complex (NPC), a cellular gatekeeper that determines what molecules can enter and exit the nucleus, where a cell’s genetic information is stored…
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April 21, 2016
This Earth Day, let’s celebrate experimentation in environmental grantmaking
Aileen Lee, J.D., incoming chief program officer for the environmental conservation program at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
As we near the forty-sixth anniversary of Earth Day, let’s all take a moment to celebrate the diversity and breadth of approaches to conserving this special planet we call home. Like so many other organizations in the conservation field, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grapples with the question of how to make sure — while there is time — Earth and its vital ecosystems flourish long into the future.

When Gordon and Betty Moore established the foundation in late 2000, they asked us to find ways for humans and other species to share the limited resources of our small but amazing planet. Fifteen years in, we’ve been both encouraged and humbled by how much our grantees and others working alongside them have accomplished — whether it’s conserving wild salmon ecosystems across the North Pacific, the long-term health of the Amazon basin, or North America’s marine environments.

As much progress as we have made, however, we also recognize that we need to scale and accelerate these gains…
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April 20, 2016
Unveiling an elusive state of superconductors
Foundation grantees at Cornell University have produced the first direct evidence of “Cooper pairs”– coupled electrons that can carry electricity with zero resistance, or behave as a wave whose density varies across space.

Now, EPiQS investigator and physicist J.C. Séamus Davis and colleagues at Max-Planck Institute CPMS in Dresden, Germany have unveiled direct evidence of a Cooper pair density wave state in a high-temperature superconductor.

The team used a scanning tunneling microscope to scan the surface of a high-temperature superconductor. By briefly lowering the tip of the microscope probe to touch the surface and pick up a flake of the superconducting material, Cooper pairs could then tunnel between the superconductor surface and the tip…

:: Journal Watch [posts below]

The Sentinel will track key peer-reviewed journals which address a broad range of interests in human rights, humanitarian response, health and development. It is not intended to be exhaustive. We will add to those monitored below as we encounter relevant content and upon recommendation from readers. We selectively provide full text of abstracts and other content but note that successful access to some of the articles and other content may require subscription or other access arrangement unique to the publisher. Please suggest additional journals you feel warrant coverage.

Annals of Internal Medicine
19 April 2016, Vol. 164. No. 8
http://annals.org/issue.aspx

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History of Medicine
Judging the Past: How History Should Inform Bioethics
Barron H. Lerner, MD, PhD; and Arthur L. Caplan, PhD
Bioethics has become a common course of study in medical schools, other health professional schools, and graduate and undergraduate programs. An analysis of past ethical scandals, as well as the bioethics apparatus that emerged in response to them, is often central to the discussion of bioethical questions. This historical perspective on bioethics is invaluable and demonstrates how, for example, the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study was inherently racist and how other experiments exploited mentally disabled and other disadvantaged persons. However, such instruction can resemble so-called Whig history, in which a supposedly more enlightened mindset is seen as having replaced the “bad old days” of physicians behaving immorally.

Bioethical discourse—both in the classroom and in practice—should be accompanied by efforts to historicize but not minimize past ethical transgressions. That is, bioethics needs to emphasize why and how such events occurred rather than merely condemning them with an air of moral superiority. Such instruction can reveal the complicated historical circumstances that led physician-researchers (some of whom were actually quite progressive in their thinking) to embark on projects that seem so unethical in hindsight. Such an approach is not meant to exonerate past transgressions but rather to explain them. In this manner, students and practitioners of bioethics can better appreciate how modern health professionals may be susceptible to the same types of pressures, misguided thinking, and conflicts of interest that sometimes led their predecessors astray.

BMC Health Services Research
http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmchealthservres/content
(Accessed 23 April 2016)

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Research article
Assessment of medicines use pattern using World Health Organization’s Prescribing, Patient Care and Health facility indicators in selected health facilities in eastern Ethiopia
Arebu I. Bilal, Ebrahim D. Osman and Anwar Mulugeta
BMC Health Services Research 2016 16:144
Published on: 23 April 2016 Abstract
Abstract
Background
About one-third of the world’s population lack access to essential medicines and this is further compounded by inappropriate prescription, dispensing, sale and use of the available medicines. The objective of the study was to assess the patterns of medicine use among health facilities in eastern Ethiopia using World Health Organization’s Prescribing, Patient Care and Health facility indicators.
Methods
A cross sectional study was carried out in eight randomly selected health centers and data were collected retrospectively as well as prospectively. Prescribing indicators were assessed retrospectively using 636 prescriptions selected by systematic random sampling technique among prescriptions filled between September 2013 and September 2014. Patient care indicators were assessed prospectively by interviewing 708 patients from the health facilities. Health facilities were assessed through observation. Data were entered and analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences version 20. P-value less than 0.05 at 95 % confidence interval considered for significance of relationships for associations in statistical tests.
Results
The average number of medicines per prescription was 2.2 with standard deviation of 0.8. The proportion of medicines prescribed by generic name was 97 and 92 % of the prescribed medicines were included in List of Essential Medicines for Ethiopia, Prescriptions containing antibiotics and injections constituted (82.5 and 11.2 %) respectively. Of the total of 1426 medicines prescribed, 49.6 % were antibiotics, with amoxicillin (33.3 %) and co-trimoxazole (16.0 %) being the most commonly prescribed agents. The average consultation and dispensing times were 5.6 and 2.7 min, respectively. Among the medicines dispensed, 64.0 % were adequately labeled and the proportion of patients with adequate knowledge about medicines was 69 %.
Conclusion
The prescribing and dispensing practices in the health facilities are fairly good and are not that far from the standard WHO requirements. However, there is a need to do more on some issues, including prescribing practice of antibiotics, average number of medicines per prescription, and patients’ dosage form knowledge

BMC Infectious Diseases
http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcinfectdis/content
(Accessed 23 April 2016)

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Research article
Treatment outcomes for patients with Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS CoV) infection at a coronavirus referral center in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Mohammed Al Ghamdi, Khalid M. Alghamdi, Yasmeen Ghandoora, Ameera Alzahrani, Fatmah Salah, Abdulmoatani Alsulami, Mayada F. Bawayan, Dhananjay Vaidya, Trish M. Perl and Geeta Sood
BMC Infectious Diseases 2016 16:174
Published on: 21 April 2016
Abstract
Background
Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a poorly understood disease with no known treatments. We describe the clinical features and treatment outcomes of patients with laboratory confirmed MERS-CoV at a regional referral center in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Methods
In 2014, a retrospective chart review was performed on patients with a laboratory confirmed diagnosis of MERS-CoV to determine clinical and treatment characteristics associated with death. Confounding was evaluated and a multivariate logistic regression was performed to assess the independent effect of treatments administered.
Results
Fifty-one patients had an overall mortality of 37 %. Most patients were male (78 %) with a mean age of 54 years. Almost a quarter of the patients were healthcare workers (23.5 %) and 41 % had a known exposure to another person with MERS-CoV. Survival was associated with male gender, working as a healthcare worker, history of hypertension, vomiting on admission, elevated respiratory rate, abnormal lung exam, elevated alanine transaminase (ALT), clearance of MERS-CoV on repeat PCR polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, and mycophenolate mofetil treatment. Survival was reduced in the presence of coronary artery disease, hypotension, hypoxemia, CXR (chest X-ray) abnormalities, leukocytosis, creatinine >1 · 5 mg/dL, thrombocytopenia, anemia, and renal failure. In a multivariate analysis of treatments administered, severity of illness was the greatest predictor of reduced survival.
Conclusions
Care for patients with MERS-CoV remains a challenge. In this retrospective cohort, interferon beta and mycophenolate mofetil treatment were predictors of increased survival in the univariate analysis. Severity of illness was the greatest predictor of reduced survival in the multivariate analysis. Larger randomized trials are needed to better evaluate the efficacy of these treatment regimens for MERS-CoV.

BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcpregnancychildbirth/content
(Accessed 23 April 2016)

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Research article
The obstetric care subsidy policy in Burkina Faso: what are the effects after five years of implementation? Findings of a complex evaluation
Burkina Faso, like many low and middle income countries, has been taking a range of actions to address its poor maternal and neonatal health indicators.
Rasmané Ganaba, Patrick G. C. Ilboudo, Jenny A. Cresswell, Maurice Yaogo, Cheick Omar Diallo, Fabienne Richard, Nadia Cunden, Veronique Filippi and Sophie Witter
BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 2016 16:84
Published on: 21 April 2016

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Research article
Factors associated with adoption of beneficial newborn care practices in rural Eastern Uganda: a cross-sectional study
Beneficial newborn care practices can improve newborn survival. However, little is known about the factors that affect adoption of these practices.
Michael O. Owor, Joseph K. B. Matovu, Daniel Murokora, Rhoda K. Wanyenze and Peter Waiswa
BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 2016 16:83
Published on: 21 April 2016

Conflict and Health
http://www.conflictandhealth.com/
[Accessed 23 April 2016]

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Methodology
Comprehensive development and testing of the ASIST-GBV, a screening tool for responding to gender-based violence among women in humanitarian settings
A. L. Wirtz, N. Glass, K. Pham, N. Perrin, L. S. Rubenstein, S. Singh and A. Vu
Published on: 20 April 2016
Abstract
Background
Conflict affected refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are at increased vulnerability to gender-based violence (GBV). Health, psychosocial, and protection services have been implemented in humanitarian settings, but GBV remains under-reported and available services under-utilized. To improve access to existing GBV services and facilitate reporting, the ASIST-GBV screening tool was developed and tested for use in humanitarian settings. This process was completed in four phases: 1) systematic literature review, 2) qualitative research that included individual interviews and focus groups with GBV survivors and service providers, respectively, 3) pilot testing of the developed screening tool, and 4) 3-month implementation testing of the screening tool. Research was conducted among female refugees, aged ≥15 years in Ethiopia, and female IDPs, aged ≥18 years in Colombia.
Results
The systematic review and meta-analysis identified a range of GBV experiences and estimated a 21.4 % prevalence of sexual violence (95 % CI:14.9-28.7) among conflict-affected populations. No existing screening tools for GBV in humanitarian settings were identified. Qualitative research with GBV survivors in Ethiopia and Colombia found multiple forms of GBV experienced by refugees and IDPs that occurred during conflict, in transit, and in displaced settings. Identified forms of violence were combined into seven key items on the screening tool: threats of violence, physical violence, forced sex, sexual exploitation, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, and early or forced marriage. Cognitive testing further refined the tool. Pilot testing in both sites demonstrated preliminary feasibility where 64.8 % of participants in Ethiopia and 44.9 % of participants in Colombia were identified with recent (last 12 months) cases of GBV. Implementation testing of the screening tool, conducted as a routine service in camp/district hospitals, allowed for identification of GBV cases and referrals to services. In this phase, 50.6 % of participants in Ethiopia and 63.4 % in Colombia screened positive for recent experiences of GBV. Psychometric testing demonstrated appropriate internal consistency of the tool (Cronbach’s α = 0.77) and item response theory demonstrated appropriate discrimination and difficulty of the tool.
Conclusion
The ASIST-GBV screening tool has demonstrated utility and validity for use in confidential identification and referral of refugees and IDPs who experience GBV.

Development Policy Review
May 2016 Volume 34, Issue 3 Pages 321–461
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dpr.2016.34.issue-3/issuetoc

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Original Articles
Applied ethics and allocation of foreign aid: disparity in pretensions and practice (pages 345–363)
Jónína Einarsdóttir and Geir Gunnlaugsson
Article first published online: 5 APR 2016 | DOI: 10.1111/dpr.12156
Abstract
We explore the applied ethics of development aid and humanitarian assistance, and juxtapose these with claimed objectives and factors that influence the choice of recipients. Despite some diversity among donors, ethical considerations appear not to be a prominent factor for allocation of aid. Although recipients’ need is not entirely ignored, donors’ self-interest and herd behaviour, and recipients’ merits and voting in the United Nations, play crucial roles in allocation decisions. Likely to be shunned are complex emergencies and fragile states, the overlapping settings for action of development and humanitarian aid. Donors should take to heart and put into practice that allocation of aid is an ethical endeavour that should rest on proper needs assessment, established objectives and adopted agreements.

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Original Articles
‘Going Out’ or Staying In? The Expansion of Chinese NGOs in Africa (pages 423–439)
Jennifer Y.J. Hsu, Timothy Hildebrandt and Reza Hasmath
Article first published online: 5 APR 2016 | DOI: 10.1111/dpr.12157
Abstract
This article examines the overseas behaviour of Chinese non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in two African nations, Ethiopia and Malawi, with varying political regime types. Our findings suggest that, irrespective of regime type, Chinese NGOs have yet to make a substantial impact in either nation. We argue that, despite the strength of the Chinese state and high levels of international development assistance given, domestic politics and regulatory frameworks in host nations still matter a great deal. Our study suggests that the Chinese model of international development will continue to be one in which temporary one-off projects are favoured; and, insofar as social organisations will play a role, they will be in the domain of government-organised NGOs rather than grassroots NGOs.

Eurosurveillance
Volume 21, Issue 16, 21 April 2016
http://www.eurosurveillance.org/Public/Articles/Archives.aspx?PublicationId=11678

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Review articles
Lessons learnt to keep Europe polio-free: a review of outbreaks in the European Union, European Economic Area, and candidate countries, 1973 to 2013
by T Derrough, A Salekeen

Globalization and Health
http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/
[Accessed 23 April 2016]

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Review
The Pan-University Network for Global Health: framework for collaboration and review of global health needs
M. S. Winchester, R. BeLue, T. Oni, U. Wittwer-Backofen, D. Deobagkar, H. Onya, T. A. Samuels, S. A. Matthews, C. Stone and C. Airhihenbuwa
Published on: 21 April 2016
Abstract
In the current United Nations efforts to plan for post 2015-Millennium Development Goals, global partnership to address non-communicable diseases (NCDs) has become a critical goal to effectively respond to the complex global challenges of which inequity in health remains a persistent challenge. Building capacity in terms of well-equipped local researchers and service providers is a key to bridging the inequity in global health. Launched by Penn State University in 2014, the Pan University Network for Global Health responds to this need by bridging researchers at more than 10 universities across the globe. In this paper we outline our framework for international and interdisciplinary collaboration, as well the rationale for our research areas, including a review of these two themes. After its initial meeting, the network has established two central thematic priorities: 1) urbanization and health and 2) the intersection of infectious diseases and NCDs. The urban population in the global south will nearly double in 25 years (approx. 2 billion today to over 3.5 billion by 2040). Urban population growth will have a direct impact on global health, and this growth will be burdened with uneven development and the persistence of urban spatial inequality, including health disparities. The NCD burden, which includes conditions such as hypertension, stroke, and diabetes, is outstripping infectious disease in countries in the global south that are considered to be disproportionately burdened by infectious diseases. Addressing these two priorities demands an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional model to stimulate innovation and synergy that will influence the overall framing of research questions as well as the integration and coordination of research.

Health Affairs
April 2016; Volume 35, Issue 4
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/current

Issue Focus: Patients’ & Consumers’ Use Of Evidence
ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY: The Ethical Imperative And Moral Challenges Of Engaging Patients And The Public With Evidence
Mildred Z. Solomon, Michael K. Gusmano, and Karen J. Maschke
Health Aff April 2016 35:583-589; doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2015.1392
Abstract
Engaging patients and the public with evidence is an ethical imperative because engagement is central to respect for persons and will likely improve health outcomes, facilitate the stewardship of resources, enhance prospects for justice, and build public trust. However, patient and public engagement is also morally complex, because evidence alone is never definitive. As patients and the public engage with evidence, value conflicts will arise and must be managed to achieve trustworthy decision making. We outline value conflicts likely to emerge in the following five settings: clinical care, health care organizations, public health, the regulatory context, and among payers. Using a variety of examples, we offer suggestions about how such conflicts may be managed, including providing more opportunities for democratic deliberation and having more explicit community discussion of how to balance personal choice and community well-being, transparent discussions of cost and quality outcomes, and greater patient engagement in community-based participatory research and the governance of learning health systems.

Health Research Policy and Systems
http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content
[Accessed 23 April 2016]

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Research
The West African Health Organization’s experience in improving the health research environment in the ECOWAS region
Jude Aidam and Issiaka Sombié
Published on: 20 April 2016
Abstract
Background
The West African Health Organization (WAHO) implemented a research development program in West Africa during 2009–2013 using the Knowledge for Better Health Research Capacity Development Framework, developed by Pang et al. (Bull World Health Organ 81(11):815–820, 2003), on strategies used to improve the research environment. The framework has the following components: stewardship, financing, sustainable resourcing and research utilization. This paper describes how WAHO implemented this research development program in the West African region to help improve the research environment and lessons learnt.
Methods
This is a retrospective review of the regional research development program using a triangulation of activity reports, an independent evaluation and the authors’ experiences with stakeholders. This program was designed to address gaps along the components of the framework and to improve partnership. The activities, results and challenges are summarised for each component of the framework. The independent evaluation was conducted using over 180 semi-structured interviews of key stakeholders in the West African region and activity reports. WAHO and major stakeholders validated these findings during a regional meeting.
Results
All 15 ECOWAS countries benefited from this regional research development program. WAHO provided technical and financial support to eight countries to develop their policies, priorities and plans for research development to improve their research governance. WAHO, along with other technical and financial partners, organised many capacity-strengthening trainings in health systems research methodology, resource mobilization, ethical oversight and on HRWeb, a research information management platform. WAHO helped launch a regional network of health research institutions to improve collaboration between regional participating institutions. Further, WAHO developed strategic research partnerships and mobilised additional funding to support the program. The program supported 24 health research projects. High staff turnover, weak institutional capacities and ineffective collaboration were some of the challenges encountered during program activity implementation.
Conclusion
The regional collaborative approach to health research development using this framework was effective given the challenges in the West African region. The achievements particularly with improved research partnerships and funding helped strengthen local health research environments. This highlights WAHO’s role and the common experiences in the West African region in improving health research.