How should donors better align to have health research focused on poverty issues?
The problem we have with donors and our own governments is that they see health as “an expenditure sector.” They need to see health as a wealth-creation sector. Donors who are focused on supporting health research for health improvement must be seen as contributing to poverty reduction especially if they ensure that evidence from the research is put to use. This is what IDRC (Canada) was able to do in the Tanzania Essential Health Intervention Project (TEHIP). The research period was prolonged to include the time the evidence was put to use by Tanzania’s Ministry of Health. East Africa as a whole is benefiting from it through use of evidence from TEHIP to reduce burden of disease and death. Another major problem many researchers have with donors is the short time frame of six months to two years within which donors want to move on; sometimes without bothering to know what use the results are being put to. It should be known that poverty disempowers people and leaves them lethargic and
