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Article
Supporting implementation of HTA in low-and middle-income countries
Published Updated
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) is partnering with low-and middle-income countries to support local implementation of health technology assessments (HTA).
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) is partnering with low-and middle-income countries to support local implementation of health technology assessments (HTA).
All countries face difficult choices deciding which new medical technologies, medicines, preventive measures and practices to introduce into the health system. Based within the Division for Health Services of NIPH, our field of expertise is supporting policy makers in low- and middle-income countries to make better informed decisions, realise Universal Health Coverage (UHC), and Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages.
With a focus on evidence synthesis and economic evaluations, our team is specialised in providing evidence for decision support, striving to assist the strengthening of evidence-based, sustainable and equitable choices in healthcare. Our team provides support for building models for scientific and technical cooperation on Health Technology Assessment (HTA). HTA is the primary decision support aid NIPH uses as it enables the most systematic, transparent and evidence-based approach towards comparing alternative interventions based up on pre-defined criteria of interest to decision-makers.
Priority settings even more important in post-COVID era
In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, many sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries will face serious economic crises and shrinking public spending. One area that may be hit hardest is the health sector, where two decades of hard-fought gains in health access and outcomes may be at risk owing to declining public financing and uncertainty in donor programming. If countries are unable to spend more, they need to spend better. In a blog post, which is part of a series of policy recommendations from Center for Global Development to support a more effective Eurafrica relationship, we contribute to a discussion on why priority setting in health is more critical now than ever before; where global priority setting expertise lies and may be drawn upon to accelerate the use of priority setting in SSA; and how Afro-European partnerships could help countries in SSA to accelerate the use of priority setting in the post-COVID era.
Our approach
Our efforts are focused on locally identified and driven activities related to HTA processes, the development of relevant tools and products for producing and using HTA.
Steps of the HTA process

We offer support to partner countries across all steps of the HTA process, as illustrated in the figure.
Aspects of implementation in partnerships with low-and middle-income countries (LMIC)
We share our expertise and support LMICs in conducting and adapting HTA to national contexts and establishing local working processes. In addition, we contribute to templates and tools to serve LMIC and global actors.
Our four phases of work include:
- country engagement and skills assessments,
- tailored capacity building, including to develop communities of practice and regional collaborations,
- technical collaborations,
- development and publication of open source tools and resource,
- sustainability, institutionalisation and evaluation
Contact point:
Partners
Countries
- Ghana - the Ghana Ministry of Health, the Ghana Health Service, Ghana National Health Insurance Agency and the University of Ghana
- Myanmar - the Ministry of Health and Sport, the WHO Myanmar country office, and Thailand's Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP)
- Moldova - the Moldovan National Public Health Agency, and the World Bank
- Palestine - the National Institute of Public Health, World Health Organization country office in the occupied Palestinian territory
Our networks
- Cochrane and Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care
- World Health Organization (WHO) Headquarters, regional and national offices, including the Decide Health Decision Hub
- European partners, mainly as members of the European network for HTA (EUnetHTA), we collaborate with the leading HTA agencies in Europe to improve HTA, develop the methodology and to share knowledge derived from HTAs
- Core membership of the International Decision Support Initiative (iDSI)
- Members of theHealth Technology Assessment international (HTAi)
Resources
All products that we produce are freely available as global public goods for the pursuit of Universal Health Coverage and will be available here when published.
- Expected December 2020: Survey instrument for the assessment of skills to conduct HTA
Reports and protocols
- Project plan for Topic Identification and Selection for HTA in LMICs (Report expected early 2021)
- Report from WHO Regional Office for Europe workshop: Current status of health intervention and technology assessment in the Balkan region (2020)
- Protocol for Scoping Review to Mapping of Methods used for the Adoption and Adaptation of Health Technology Assessments (HTA) (Report expected early 2021)
Our team
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Ingvil Von Mehren Sæterdal
Department Director
Telephone: 21077264
More information
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Lumbwe Chola
Senior Adviser/Health Economics
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Elizabeth Fleur Peacocke
Senior Adviser
Telephone: 21078415
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Akuba Kwansima Dolphyne
Senior Implementation Advisor
Telephone: 21077367
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Steve Diaz French
Senior Adviser
Telephone: 21078411
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Katrine Bjørnebek Frønsdal
Senior researcher
Telephone: 21077284
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Unni Gopinathan
Senior Scentist
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Vigdis Lauvrak
Senior researcher
Telephone: 21077288
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Eia Elena Skjønsberg
Adviser
Telephone: 21078453
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Maria Julia Bidonde Torre
Telephone: 21077294
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Lieke Fleur Heupink
Advisor
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Funding
This work is partially financed by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, grant number QZA-18/0102.