Page 119 - SAMRC Annual Report 2024-2025
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PERFORMANCE INFORMATION
effective and equitable health services and systems,
and to learn from the process to inform growth in
national health-technology assessment and clinical
guidelines development.
Building Capacity Through
Training, Mentorship, and Support
HSRU staff facilitated or hosted 20 lectures, four
workshops and 16 webinars, as part of its capacity-
development initiatives. Forty-two students are
being supervised by HSRU staff. Some of the students
graduated with Masters and PhDs whilst some of our
staff members passed their PhD proposal defences.
The STAR project mentored four midwives from
rural district hospitals to submit abstracts to a local
conference – all were accepted for oral presentations.
This investment in our healthcare providers is a
highly valued capacity-development opportunity for
these public-sector frontline health professionals.
One project focused on capacity building is the
EDCTP-funded Global Evidence-Local Adaptation
(GELA) project, a three-year multi-country, multi-
stakeholder effort to advance the capacity of
researchers and policymakers to develop credible,
rigorous clinical-guideline adaptation for child health
in Malawi, Nigeria and South Africa. We reached
over 150 individuals through tailored, in-depth
capacity-building initiatives including guideline-
simulation workshops and a community of practice.
Respectful collaboration facilitated cross-learning
within and across countries, with opportunities for
leadership development reported. Overall, formal
and experiential learning for guideline panellists,
future methodologists, researchers, and students
was core to success and completing guidelines for
priority child-health topics in each country. Available
at https://africa.cochrane.org/projects/GELA.
Navigating the Impact of US
Executive Orders on Funding
Fiscal pressures to funding streams triggered
by changes in federal funding in the USA have
affected several projects and staff. Our teams
have collaborated to navigate this challenge;
The Caregiver Wellbeing Plus (CWEL+) project. however, uncertainty remains for the future flow of
Results showed that caregivers receiving the
CWEL+ empowerment workshops plus cash development funds from the USA and other high-
had increased well-being compared to those income countries. During the year we submitted
receiving cash transfer only. 13 grant proposals and received more than
R43 million in grant funding.
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