The Building Stronger Public Health Institutions and Systems (BIS) Program in Uganda
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Under the BIS program, NIPH is exploring long-term collaboration with Uganda to contribute to strengthening public health capacity within the Uganda National Institute of Public Health.
Aims of the BIS collaboration
NIPH and its partner institutions are focusing on projects within two specific and important public health functions. Firstly, in public health informatics: the project will explore, identify, and test synergies in birth and death registrations through the strengthening of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) and integration with health registries in Uganda. Secondly, in health systems resilience: this project will interrogate the applicability, robustness and utility of existing frameworks used to access epidemic preparedness and will assess the extent to which lessons from past epidemics have informed health systems strengthening, as well as identify good practices and describe barriers to health systems learning in Africa.
Through this project, Norad will fund two PhD scholarships with relevance to the two public health domains. Closer institutional collaboration between NIPH and its partner institutions has been facilitated through a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and Collaboration Agreement.
BIS Uganda Project updates
March 2024
- The NIPH BIS Program Director, Linda Martinsen, visited our partners in Uganda for the first time, alongside Project Coordinator Aurelia India Neumark, on her fourth visit to Kampala
- This provided an opportunity to discuss next steps with the BIS Uganda program, hear more about the progression of UNIPH and consolidate opportunities and linkages
- We also visited Makerere School of Public Health, and discussed progress with our two BIS-funded PhD students (studying health systems resilience and digital health, and our third BIS-linked PhD student, as well as their supervisors»
- Also in March, Ragnhild Dybdahl, on secondment to Africa CDC, took part in a workshop as part of a new African Mental Health Leadership Programme. Ragnhild and Joy Muhia, Mental Health Innovation Network Coordinator, have reflected on the workshop HERE.
May 2023
Formalization of the partnership:
- In May, the parties signed a tri-partite Collaboration Agreement setting out our goals for the next 3 years, and progressed work on the two projects
February 2023
Launch of the projects:
- By February, the three partners had signed an MoU, agreed the terms of a Collaboration Agreement, advertised and recruited two PhD students and started planning for the two projects.
- The project team had engaged in continued communication with stakeholders relevant to the two public health domains.
October 2022
Scoping of the projects:
- A second visit in October 2022 fully fleshed out the two projects – digital health and health systems resilience – and solidified our mutual working relationship.
April 2022
Inaugural visit:
- Spring 2022 was the NIPH team’s first visit to Kampala to explore opportunities and themes for the BIS Uganda project. We met representatives from, among others, UNIPH, UNICEF, WHO, the Ministry of Health, HISP Uganda – and, of course, NIPH and Makerere University of Public Health
History of Collaboration
The NIPH has a long history of research collaboration with Makerere University, with four major research projects at present.
These important Uganda-Norway collaborations have not focused on institutional cooperation between our respective public health institutions. The Uganda BIS project is therefore exploring the opportunities to develop longer-term institutional collaborations between the newly formed Uganda National Institute of Public Health, Makerere University School of Public Health, and the NIPH.
NIPH Collaborative Team
- Mahima Venkateswaran, NIPH co-Country Coordinator
- Frederik Frøen, NIPH co-Country Coordinator
- Aurelia India Neumark, BIS Project Management Support
Partners in Uganda
