Assignment Reports
The ongoing conflict in Syria has taken a devastating toll on the education system; the impact on infrastructure, personnel, resourcing and student attendance is well documented. New DFID-funded research focuses on children’s learning and their exposure to trauma to build a picture of early primary education in opposition-held areas. In combining data on academic performance… Read more
The already weak health care delivery sector in Sierra Leone has been further overburdened with the Ebola outbreak. All efforts made towards strengthening the health system and working towards providing equitable access to healthcare for all has suffered a major setback. The Ebola outbreak has further highlighted the gaps in the health system namely lack… Read more
Diseases such as Ebola highlight the importance of a holistic focus on health systems, as opposed to assuming that health is the preserve and concern of health professionals alone. This was the lesson Uganda learnt very quickly in managing the Ebola outbreak in 2001. Until the current epidemic in West Africa, Uganda held the unfortunate… Read more
Increasingly, policies are being put in place by governments to identify and provide services to parents who are seen as needing additional support in fulfilling their parenting roles. Such policies can be justified on the basis of young children’s rights as well as the accumulating evidence that many problems of development, behaviour and mental health in… Read more
This MQSUN Research Summary is based on a systematic review of complementary feeding interventions for prevention of undernutrition. Complementary feeding for infants refers to the timely introduction of safe and nutritional foods in addition to breast-feeding. These foods are typically provided to children from 6 to 24 months of age. It has been suggested that… Read more
This MQSUN Briefing describes lessons learnt and implications from a MQSUN assignment which main objective was to analyze the research and policy challenges for improving nutrition governance in a context of state fragility. Efforts to strengthen government commitment to reduce under nutrition in Fragile and Conflict Affected States (FCAS) face a number of context specific… Read more
This Maximising the Quality of Scaling Up Nutrition Programme (MQSUN) briefing is based on the Political Economy of Under-Nutrition in Pakistan study. It highlights challenges faced for mainstreaming nutrition as an inter-sectoral development priority and provides strategic recommendations using Acosta and Fanzo’s nutrition governance framework.
The objective of this report is to provide an understanding of the role of the private sector in skills development, both as employers and as skills providers. The aim of the research was to find potential opportunities to support private sector integration in all aspects of skills development, particularly in low-income countries. In addition, the… Read more
HSRC REPORT: This briefing, concentrates on what is achievable with current tools and contemporary epidemiology in terms of Malaria eradication. New tools are likely to become available over time now that eradication is back on the agenda, backed by significant resources, but there are none which are likely to make global eradication possible currently near… Read more
HSRC REPORT: A Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks (MTEF) is a multi-year public expenditure planning exercise that is used to set out the future budget requirements for existing services, and to assess the resource implications of future policy changes and any new programmes. This paper describes the role and value of an MTEF, and how it… Read more
HSRC REPORT: This paper provides a better understanding of the systematic approach in mapping the flow of health sector funds.It also sets out the extent to which a National Health Accounts approach can begin to address some of these questions, some of the limitations associated with the approach and other relevant issues.