EVIDENT | Evidence Informed Decision-making in Health & Nutrition

EVIDENT organises a dissemination event: Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons Learned in Evidence-Informed Decision Making for Nutrition and Health in Africa  on December 6, 2016 in Brussels. The major results of this three year research project will be presented to the partners, stakeholders and donors. We also aim to look ahead in a participatory way to advance evidence-informed decision-making in Africa.

EVIDENT contributes a ReSAKKS chapter on Evidence-Informed Decision Making EVIDENT has contributed a chapter on Evidence-Informed Decision Making (EIDM) for the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS), by elaborating on creating insight in EIDM African country processes and strengthening capacity. ReSAKSS was established in 2006 under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and supports efforts to promote evidence and outcome-based policy planning and implementation in Africa. EVIDENT, through its EIDM approach, can thus be related to ReSAKSS, which creates new opportunities for the EVIDENT network. ReSAKSS will present its work at the ReSAKKS Annual Conference in October in Accra on the theme ‘Achieving a Nutrition revolution for Africa: The Road to Healthier Diets and Optimal Nutrition’. http://www.resakss.org/

NUTRITION DYNAMICS IN AFRICA: About the opportunities and challenges to meet the sustainable development goals. SUB-THEMES: • Food and Nutrition Assessment methodologies (Pre-conference Workshop) • Food policy, Food Prices, Livelihoods and Nutritional well-being • Nutrition and HIV, Micronutrient Deficiencies • Diet therapy, overnutrition and NCDs • Maternal Nutrition and Infant and Young Child Feeding • Nutrition, Food Security and Agricultural linkages • Scaling Up Nutrition   EVIDENT will offer a Young Scientist Award to a graduate student who is able to demonstrate why and how his/her research is important for decision making. The aim of the Young Scientist award is to promote the linkage between research and decision-making for nutrition. The award winner will receive a recognition of their potential for envisioning the role of their research in decision-making in their country and beyond. The award will be presented at the ANEC conference and the winner will have his/her travel costs to the conference covered by the award. Details on the award application is available on the ANEC 7 webpage: https://anec7.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/evident-young-scientist-award-2016/.

September 20-22, 2016 The South African EVIDENT team will be presenting an abstract at the EVIDENCE 2016 congress (Engage - Understand - Impact).  The aim of the EVIDENCE 2016 congress is to encourage and promote evidence-informed decision-making in Africa. The abstract that will be presented is titled " Strengthening country efforts for evidence-informed decision-making in nutrition and health: the EVIDENT experience ", and will fall under the "engage" category. During the presentation the focus will fall on the three African countries case studies that were initiated (South Africa, Benin and Ghana).  EVIDENT will provide valuable information and lessons learnt on Evidence Informed Decision-Making practices within African countries.

The ANH Academy Week consisted of contributions from a diverse set of ANH Academy partners and with the oversight of an International Steering Committee, including: 1)    Conference on Agri-Health Research. The call for abstracts is now open 2)    Learning Labs (training workshops) offered by ANH Academy partners 3)    Events led by ANH Academy partner organisations 4)    Opportunities for networking University of Ghana was one of the ANH Academy partners that presented a learning lab on Evidence.

Partners met for the yearly partner meeting in Accra. The meeting was organized by the local evident team. Deliverables, progress and challenges were discussed.