" [1]Johannesburg/Lisbon, 3 February 2010 - Health researchers, data providers and policymakers from the African Union’s NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency), the European Commission (EC) and other international organizations convened in Lisbon, Portugal between the 28th and 29th of January 2011 to kick-start a project of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) on the performance of health-related development initiatives that are funded by the European Union (EU).
According to Dr. Phillippe Mawoko of the NEPAD Agency, the project which is referred to as EVAL-HEALTH is a collaborative 36 month initiative that is to be implemented by a consortium of 9 institutions with support of the FP7 health programme.
“The project is focused on developing and testing new and innovative approaches that can help the health research community to monitor and evaluate health related EU-funded interventions in cooperation partner countries”, said Mawoko.
It is in this regard that the project is also expected to strengthen monitoring and evaluation capacities as well as contribute to improving aid effectiveness – particularly around the measurement of the effects that health-related initiatives may have on the people at the grassroots level.
The consortium – which is to be coordinated by the Spanish company Innovatec – of 9 institutions all of which have complementary expertise in the health sector includes the following: the NEPAD Planning and Coordination Agency (South Africa), the Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development at the University of Leeds (United Kingdom), The Royal Tropical Institute (The Netherlands), the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal), ASEAN Institute for Health Development-Mahidol University (Thailand), the Association for Stimulating Know How (India), the College of Medicine of the University of Nigeria (Nigeria) and the Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario (Colombia).
The consortium will benefit from the inclusion of three high-level external Advisory Committees formed by relevant experts on monitoring and evaluation of health aid. The Committee will provide important inputs and counselling to the research work carried out by the consortium and first-hand advice on the applicability and relevance of the research.
EVAL-HEALTH is structured in such a way that it takes into account the following important considerations: the current context of actual frame of international development cooperation; the European Commission (EC) services specific needs in the health area and the current status of monitoring and evaluation of funded interventions and projects in the health sector; and the NEPAD health strategy in the case of Africa.
For more information, please contact: Dr Philippe K. Mawoko: pkmawoko@nepadst.org [2]
Mr. Lukovi Seke: seke@nepadst.org [3] / LukoviS@nepad.org [4] also go to: www.eval-health.eu [5]
