National health reasearch agenda 2012 - 2016

The conduct of health or biomedical research in Malawi dates back to preindependence era. Since then, the need for health research has been growing in order to inform policy and health care service delivery. Most of the research has been operations research commissioned by national disease control programmes on the one hand, while basic health research has been influenced largely by the academic community on the other hand, while a greater proportion of all health research conducted in Malawi has been externally driven, thereby leaving little room, if any, for Malawi to focus on conducting locally relevant priority research. Recognising this growing need for health research, Malawi through the Health Research Capacity Strengthening Initiative, a programme operating in Malawi with funding from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and Wellcome Trust, embarked on a process of developing her own National Health Research Agenda that covers a period of five years from 2012 to 2016.

This National Health Research Agenda represents nationally set and agreed priorities in which research efforts for Malawi will be concentrated over the next five years. The Agenda document itself is organized into eleven chapters or sections. These are: Introduction; Background; Goal and Objectives; Guiding Principles; Methodology; Areas of Research; Implementation of the Research Agenda; Financing of the National Health Research Agenda; Dissemination of Research Findings; Monitoring and Evaluation of the Agenda; and List of Source Materials.

This National Health Research Agenda finally represents the Government of Malawi policy need and interest for research to be carried out in the identified priority areas. Research in the identified priorities is geared towards obtaining evidence which is much needed for policy and decision making. Government of Malawi, therefore, expects all cadres of stakeholders to support the implementation of this National Health Research Agenda.