Engaging civil society actors in our research – SUPPORT-SYSTEMS

01

Members active in civil society organizations on the review team.

The People's Health Movement (PHM) is a global network of grassroots health activists, civil society organizations and academic institutions, particularly from low- and middle-income countries. Founded in 2000, PHM works for Health for All, guided by the People's Charter for Health and has country branches around the world.

Two members of its Kenyan branch, PHM-Kenya, Ravi Ram and Peninah N. Khisa, have been part of the project’s research team and contributed to our Cochrane qualitative evidence synthesis on using evidence from civil society in national and subnational health policy processes. They participated across the review process, from facilitating dialogue with civil society participants to reviewing the protocol, interpreting findings and helping consider implications for practice.

Beyond their own contributions as review authors, they have also coordinated engagement with the wider PHM membership, which has also informed the development of the review and the project’s research focus.

02

Dialogue with health activists and civil society participants from East and Southern Africa

PHM organized a six-day course in Nairobi on action for equitable health systems, organized by PHM Kenya together with its East and Southern African branches. Around 40 young health activists from nine countries took part, from Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi, Burundi, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. The course was supported by the SUPPORT-SYSTEMS project with funding for travel and accommodation for six participants.

Unni Gopinathan and Elizabeth Peacocke (digitally) and Jacinta Nzinga (in-person) organized a session during the course titled "The use of evidence from civil society in health policy making: Critical discussion of concepts, assumptions, and examples." The session introduced the evidence review and opened a wider discussion of how evidence from civil society actors can inform health policy, drawing on participants' views and experiences of generating evidence and bringing it into policy processes in their own countries. More details are available in the workshop report.

03

Global online discussion through Healthcare Information for All

Healthcare Information for All (HIFA) is a global community of practice that discuss topics on digital forum, including health workers, researchers, policymakers and civil society representatives. Together with HIFA, we ran a four-week thematic discussion, planned by a working group of 12 volunteers drawn from HIFA members and the SUPPORT-SYSTEMS research team. Each week focused on one question: what civil society participation in health policy means, members' own experiences of policy processes, examples of the roles civil society actors play in policymaking, and the kinds of evidence they can offer that might otherwise be overlooked.

Fourteen members from ten countries made 80 contributions. Contributors had backgrounds in civil society networks, NGOs and coalitions, frontline health care, research, and formal policy roles such as ministry posts or technical advisory committees. The contributions suggested that evidence and knowledge from civil society can play an important role in informing health policy, but whether it is used depends less on the evidence itself than on the politics around it: who is invited to speak, whose interests they represent, and who holds power over the decision. Lasting institutional channels, combined with careful interpretation of what civil society brings, can turn participation and evidence into real influence. A fuller analysis is available in the peer-reviewed journal publication.

04

Stakeholder dialogue with civil society actors in Accra, Ghana, March 27, 2025

We convened civil society organizations, Ministry of Health representatives and researchers in Accra to discuss how civil society knowledge can be better integrated into health decision-making in Ghana, and how this may affect inclusiveness and accountability. The dialogue was chaired by co-investigator Augustina Koduah from the University of Ghana. After an introduction to the project by co-Principal Investigator Dr. Benjamin Tsofa, early-career researchers Dennis Waithaka, Daniel Abankwah and Dr. Doris Ottie-Boakye presented findings from our Ghana and Kenya case studies on vaccine policy and primary health care.

Participants described a gap between the evidence civil society organizations can produce and the trust policymakers place in it. Contributing factors included hierarchies that favor academic and quantitative evidence, a history of mutual suspicion, fragmentation and competition among organizations, donor dependence, and involvement that comes late, at implementation or validation rather than when there is space to raise, debate and influence policy solution. The full meeting report provides more details about what was discussed and recommendations to government and civil society actors on how to strengthen the use of evidence from civil society in health policymaking.