Photo from Malawi
Market place in Malawi (Photo: Ragnhild Dybdahl, FHI)

BIS collaboration in Malawi Phase 2

Last update

The Norad-funded Building Stronger Public Health Institutions and Systems (BIS)[S[1.1] programme in Malawi is a long-term partnership between the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) and the Public Health Institute of Malawi (PHIM).

The BIS programme in Malawi Phase 2

The first contacts between PHIM and NIPH took place in 2007. The Global Health Preparedness Programme ran from 2015 to 2020 and BIS 1 lasted from 2021 to 2025. The current phase, BIS 2, started in September 2025 and will last until the end of 2029. The programme supports Malawi’s efforts to strengthen public health systems, improve disease surveillance and build institutional capacity to respond to health threats.

More on BIS:

Directors of PHIM and NIPH with BIS-team.
NIPH general director professor Guri Rørtveit visiting the BIS program in Malawi in 2025.

The BIS collaboration consists of peer-to-peer support and assistance on demand.

Though PHIM is a much younger institution than NIPH, with much smaller budget to cover the needs of a much larger population, the role of the two sister institutes is very similar and the essential public health functions they aim at filling are essentially the same.  

Therefore, the experts at NIPH and their peers at PHIM are well situated to support each other and mutually benefit from the collaborations. Long term presence, coordination and flexibility, adjusting to the needs of PHIM, are key principles in the approach to ensure we do no harm to the structures we aim to support.

Main Aims of BIS in Malawi 

The overall aim of the BIS collaboration is to support PHIM and the core public health functions in Malawi.  

At the start of BIS 2, NIPH together with Team Europe, Africa CDC and IANPHI, supported a maturity assessment of PHIM. Together with the lessons learnt and research findings from BIS 1, this will be guiding throughout the project period.

PHIM’s management has identified three specific areas for closer collaboration:  

  1. Strengthening health security from a OneHealth perspective, by identifying and filling gaps in the surveillance and response chain. In BIS 2, the main emphasis is on the integrated disease surveillance (IDSR), outbreak investigation, biosafety and biosecurity, and strengthening the link between laboratory and epidemiology.
  2. Supporting competency building, including the supervision of a PhD candidate and the continued support of the new Malawian medical specialty (Mmed) in public health. In this context, we also seek to improve knowledge management by supporting access to scientific literature and networks.
  3. Providing organisational support as PHIM prepares for potential transition from the Ministry of Health into a legal entity. This includes support in areas such as infrastructure, finance, networking and partnership coordination. We are also supporting PHIMs public health communication through its website, serving as a communication channel to health workers, decision makers and the public across the country.
Two men hanging up a poster. Picture

Collaboration Partners  

The Public Health Institute of Malawi (PHIM) is our main partner in Malawi. Founded in 2012, it now has around 70 employees and continues to grow. It has three main departments: Research and Development, Epidemiology and Surveillance, and the Reference Laboratory. 

NIPH also collaborate with the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS) in academic activities supporting the Mmed of Public Health, and a PhD student. The university, located in Blantyre, was established in 2019 through the merging of the College of Nursing and the College of Medicine.

The BIS project also initiated a series of partnership coordination meetings to improve collaboration and avoid overlapping and gapping between the different partners to PHIM.  

 

Main Activities and Achievements under BIS

  • Contributing to strengthen coordination and collaboration among donors and partners, promoting greater synergy and alignment with PHIM’s strategic priorities and institutional objectives. A new Partnership Coordinator at PHIM has been recruited.
  • Supporting development of a web site for PHIM as a communication channel with health workers, decisions makers and the general public in Malawi, featuring updated dashboards, reports, news etc.
  • Supporting PHIM’s work establishing national guidelines on biosafety and biosecurity and training of participants from both the human and animal sector (both in Lilongwe and Blantyre).
  • Contributing to strengthening laboratory personnel's capacity to safely handle and manage biological risks. An example is through an online refresher course as part of preparedness for the Rift Valley Fever (RVF) outbreak in 2026.
  • Contributing to strengthen the national response, for an example the Mpox outbreak in 2025, by supporting training for health personnel in affected districts, radio and TV information spots, and assisting with response coordination.
  • Contributing to strengthen the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) system in Malawi through an in-depth analysis conducted as part of a PhD project, leading to stakeholder consensus on case definitions and the nationwide distribution of reporting posters outlining diseases and events requiring weekly notification by health facilities.
  • Contributing to strengthen PHIM’s emergency preparedness and response capacity through the installation of solar panels, ensuring a reliable electricity supply to support its coordination role during public health emergencies.
  • Supporting PHIMs establishment of an institutional system to cover operational costs, ensuring quick access to funds for small and unforeseen expenses. This arrangement has proved essential to allow PHIM to deploy rapidly in response to potential outbreaks.
  • Provided technical and organisational support for the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) 2024.

 

NIPH Collaborative Team 

Related articles

External links

Published | Last update