SAVING Consortium through its Work Package (WP) 5, led by the Swiss TPH organized a 2-day stakeholders engagement and knowledge translation workshop on the 8th and 9th of June 2023 at the Ange Hill Hotel in Accra, Ghana. The workshop was in line with the WP’s objectives to:
- assemble emerging new knowledge along project implementation and assure transparent and systematic information of project stakeholders by evidence, including when evidence is weak or anecdotal.
- identify ‘opportunity windows’ for management and policy uptake and decision-making related to the project’s research findings and promote the development of evidence synthesis.
The focus of the first day of the workshop was to explore the decision space for the introduction of new health technologies in Ghana and the contributions of SAVING.
Participants of the workshop on the first day included external and internal stakeholders of the Ministry of Health, Food and Drug Authority and University of Health and Allied Sciences. The workshop was kick-started with presentations by the WP leads on the overview of the SAVING project and progress with the activities of each WP.
Prof. Bosch-Capblanch, a member of WP 5 and lead facilitator for the workshop presented preliminary findings of an ongoing stakeholder analysis aimed at analyzing and understanding roles and responsibilities based on the cross-institutional stakeholder analysis to support planning and communication activities. Out of a total of 163 listed stakeholders, those with valid emails were 121 of which only 22 have responded so far after 3 reminders were sent. This workshop also offered the final chance to stakeholders who were yet to respond to fill out the questionnaire on the spot so that interim findings can be validated and disseminated.
The preliminary findings suggested that most stakeholders consider themselves to know a lot about the SAVING research and issues related to the introduction of the RTS,S malaria vaccine. New interventions reported to have been recently introduced in Ghana included COVID-19 vaccines, Meningitis vaccine, Rotavirus vaccine, Mosquito nets, Carbetocin for post-partum haemorrhage, Eastern Ghana Perform2Scale and the MedSafety mobile app.
Some of the issues discussed with stakeholders included;
- Is the engagement from stakeholders in implementation research limited?
- Is “academia” at the core of evidence production and dissemination in Ghana?
- Are MOH / GHS and WHO the dominant actors in deciding the acquisition of new interventions?
- Ghana has the structures, but has it also the processes?
- How can stakeholders achieve higher coordination and alignment levels?
- What are the implications of the above on SAVING?
Participants were then put in groups for activity on ‘stakeholders positioning’. Based on the plenary discussion on the stakeholder positioning Prof. Margaret Gyapong led the participants to familiarize themselves with the ADP framework and explained its Importance for Ghana in the introduction of new interventions and technologies/HTA.” Participants were also engaged in a second group work session to map the decision spaces for the uptake of new health technologies, comparing vaccines (including RTS,S) and other interventions. This was followed by a plenary discussion on “Decisions on new health technologies in Ghana. The day ended with a final evaluation of the workshop by the participants.
The focus of day-2 of the workshop was to explore the role of evidence synthesis, HTA and knowledge translation in the uptake of new interventions in Ghana. Participants of the workshop for day two included only internal stakeholders of the consortium. The day started with an overview of the Knowledge Translation Cycle by Prof. Bosch-Capblanch, showing the different steps to bridge the gap from evidence to policy and practice. As part of this presentation, he also addressed related topics (i) ‘Primary Research’, which detailed the architecture of study designs: rationale, bias, error, and representativity and (ii) ‘Evidence Synthesis’ or systematic reviews, including: rationales, types, use and interpretation, overview of processes and methods, from searching up to publishing.
Similarly, as was the case on day-1, there was a session for group work based on “Evidence to decisions frameworks”, to experience the challenge of making decisions based on existing evidence. This was followed by a plenary discussion session on the topic. At the end of the day, there was a presentation on HTA in Ghana by Dr Brian Asare, after which he led the final plenary session for the workshop based on the implications of HTA in Ghana with a focus on “How Evidence to policy/HTA is and can be strengthened/institutionalized in Ghana”
The final activity was the evaluation of the day’s activities by participants.
