Through these partnerships, IGPH uses a Program Science approach, which focuses on embedding high-quality research and learning into programs to generate, translate, and integrate knowledge for optimizing context-specific public health programs and policies.
Through our partnerships, we aim to:
- Identify priority populations and geographies
- Generate knowledge and learning to enhance program processes, implementation and optimize outcomes
- Create learning and mentoring opportunities for researchers and trainees, program implementers, decision-makers, and other relevant stakeholders
- Support evidence-informed public health programs at scale and evaluate new innovations
- Share experiences across focus countries and partners
Approach to partnerships
Our approach has taken several forms, including the following:
Innovation hubs
Madhya Pradesh, India, Karnataka, India, and Nigeria
The work of an Innovation Hub is exemplified through our partnerships in Madhya Pradesh, India, through which we work closely with the government of Madhya Pradesh, India Health Action Trust and Antara Foundation.
The Hub has a broad mandate to improve health outcomes in reproductive, maternal, newborn, child health and nutrition, HIV, tuberculosis and health system strengthening.
A key activity led by the Innovation Hub involves secondary analysis of existing public health program data through a collaborative research process to develop a detailed understanding of patterns in target areas across districts in Madhya Pradesh, identify programmatic gaps, and provide strategic guidance to the government on how to optimize programs to improve population-level outcomes.
Technical support units
Kenya and Uttar Pradesh, India
In 2012, IGPH established a Technical Support Unit (TSU) in Kenya to provide techno-managerial support to the National Key Population Programme led by the National AIDS and STI control Program (NASCOP) of the Government of Kenya.
Through the Kenya TSU, IGPH partners with Partners for Health and Development in African (PHDA), NASCOP and Kenya’s National AIDS Control Council (NACC) to support the effective implementation of HIV prevention programming for key populations—including female sex workers, men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, and transgender people—across the country.
Training and capacity building, monitoring and evaluation and embedded research are all central to our work through the TSU. Data are generated, used, and applied at all levels of government to inform decision making, policy and practice.
The Global Program Science Network
Thematic streams in HIV and infectious diseases and reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child health and nutrition
Through the work of our Program Science Networks, we bring together global experts to discuss and debate challenging public health issues, review current evidence, examine strategies to address core public health challenges and share lessons learned from across different contexts.
Technical collaborations
An important role of the technical collaborations team is to help advance, strengthen, and catalyze existing partnerships within IGPH; identify opportunities to develop new partnerships; support ongoing research and program work in various contexts; and create opportunities for Program Science Partners to share relevant knowledge, experiences, and expertise.
IGPH typically collaborates with three categories of partners:
- Government partners: Partnerships with national, state, and/or provincial governments aim to support their context-specific public health goals, set research agendas to identify, measure, and address critical gaps, and facilitate the uptake of relevant evidence into public health policies and programs.
- Academic and research institution partners: Academic partnerships draw upon expertise from diverse geographies and disciplines and contribute to the development of relevant research agendas and methodologies that can address questions prioritized by public health programs, facilitate large-scale data sharing, introduce diverse areas of expertise, and leverage specialized knowledge and methodologies to enable effective programming.
- Non-governmental- and community-led organization partners: Non-governmental and community-led organizations operate as frontline implementers with context-specific expertise in providing services within key and priority populations. These partnerships provide learning, support, and guidance for integrating research elements into programs, translate evidence into action, and focus on scaling up and optimizing effective coverage of service delivery.
Partnerships
IGPH works in four focus countries (India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan), with additional projects in other core countries, including Ukraine, and Canada.
Canada
International Diagnostic Centre - Canada
The International Diagnostic Centre (IDC) - Canada is within the Institute for Global Public Health as part of a global IDC network. The IDC Canada will build on the IGPH infrastructure and partnerships in Canada and globally, including large research and program platforms in India and Kenya and research and technical support programs in Pakistan, Nigeria, Ukraine, and several other countries.
India
IGPH has been providing technical, programmatic and research support to state and national governments in India across the areas of HIV, Infectious Diseases and reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health (RMNCH) and nutrition.
IGPH began working in south India on HIV prevention in partnership with KHPT in the early 2000s and then as a part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Funded Avahan Initiative—some of the largest and most successful HIV prevention programs globally. Since that time, IGPH has expanded its work to the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. Currently, our largest program is providing Technical Support to the Government of Uttar Pradesh to optimize the RMNCH and nutrition programs across the state.
Our primary implementing partner is India Health Action Trust, with whom we also partner to implement an Innovation Hub in Madhya Pradesh, Technical Support Units for HIV in Delhi and Karnataka and a Technical Support Unit for Tuberculosis in Uttar Pradesh.
More recently, IGPH, in partnership with the National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC), International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and IHAT is engaged in a national and subnational investigation of the drivers of success in maternal and newborn mortality reduction in India, as a part of the Exemplars in Global Health. We have also established collaboration with the Niti Aayog, the apical public policy think tank in India, on Public Health Surveillance and in examining public health data for decision making.
Government partners
- Government of Madhya Pradesh, Ministry of Health
- Government of Uttar Pradesh, Ministries of Health and Women & Child Development
- National AIDS Control Organization (NACO)
- National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC)
- NITI Aayog
Civil society partners (NGOs and CBOs)
- Antara Foundation
- Ashodaya Samithi
- India Health Action Trust
- Karnataka Health Promotion Trust
- Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI)
Academic and research partners
Kenya
Over the past 40 years, the University of Manitoba has developed and executed a large number of HIV, STI and MNCH-related research and development programs in Kenya.
Our work now consists of three broad sets of activities. The first is a wide range of basic and applied research projects. The second comprises development programs related to the prevention and control of HIV infection and STIs, and to improving maternal, neonatal and child health. The third comprises training and capacity building, and over the years, hundreds of Kenyan and international scientists and program implementers have been trained across a wide spectrum of disciplines.
The work of the UM and its partners in Kenya has generated much of what we now know about the HIV epidemic in Africa, and has had enormous impact on global STI and HIV/AIDS-related health policy, prevention, care and support. Key contributions include the importance of key populations in HIV prevention and control, and of male circumcision in HIV prevention. UM provides technical support to the government of Kenya to strengthen and scale up its HIV response, and supports program implementation directly through a series of sex worker outreach (SWOP) clinics. In all areas, we work closely with academic institutions, government departments, civil society organizations and community-based organizations.
To help support our work in Kenya, the non-governmental organization Partners for Health and Development in Africa (PHDA) was established, in partnership with the University of Manitoba. PHDA is a non-profit organization registered in Kenya, that builds on a legacy of successful HIV, STI and MNCH research and programmes led by local scientists and public health professionals.
Government partners
Civil society partners (NGOs and CBOs)
- Partners for Health and Development in Africa
- Health Options for Young Men on HIV/AIDS/STI (HOYMAS)
- SWOP Kenya
- HIV and AIDS Peoples Alliance of Kenya (HAPA Kenya)
- International Centre for Reproductive Health (ICRH)
Academic and research partners
Nigeria
The IGPH has worked closely with the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) and other partners in Nigeria to generate evidence and provide technical guidance to strengthen HIV prevention in the country. With Nigeria as a focus country for a global HIV “program science” initiative, an IGPH team worked closely with national and state level programs, civil society organizations, and international organizations to support the design of HIV prevention programs.
This included reviewing and synthesizing information about the HIV epidemic, designing and implementing epidemic appraisals, programmatic mapping of key populations, a study of risk and vulnerability in urban environments, and the development of national guidelines for programs for women in sex work. More recently, the IGPH has been a lead technical agency for the conduct of an integrated biological and behavioural surveillance survey among key populations across Nigeria, and is working closely with NACA to analyze and synthesize the data to improve program design and implementation.
Government partners
- National AIDS Control Agency (NACA)
- State Agencies for the Control of AIDS (SACAs)
- National AIDS, Viral Hepatitis and STIs Control Program (NASCP)
Civil society partners (NGOs and CBOs)
- Society for Family Health
- West Africa Centre for Public Health and Development
Academic and research partners
Pakistan
The University of Manitoba partners with the Ministry of National Health Services, Research and Coordination in Pakistan to provide policy inputs at the highest level for the achievement of health agenda within the goals of Universal Health Coverage largely focusing on RMNCH-A.
Through this partnership, we are working to support the DCP-3 initiative and the roll out and monitoring of UHC package across Islamabad and multiple districts to build support across government for higher levels of investment in health, and to ensure that health is prioritized to achieve the SDGs.
The university also has linkages with other premier public health institutions in Pakistan including the Health Services Academy, Aga Khan University and Fatima Jinnah Women’s university to strengthen human resources for health, and ultimately improving health services in Pakistan. University’s continued support to the HIV AIDS response since 2004 has included development and implementation of a second generation surveillance system for HIV/AIDS which has led to an in-depth understanding of the epidemic and improve prevention response.
Government partners
Civil society partners (NGOs and CBOs)
Academic and research partners
Ukraine
IGPH has provided technical and research support on HIV prevention among marginalized populations in Ukraine for over a decade. We have long standing partnerships with the Ukrainian Institute for Social Research after Oleksandr Yaremenko (UISR after Oleksandr Yaremenko) and the Center for Public Health, Ministry of Health, Ukraine.
IGPH has been leading multi-disciplinary research studies to understand the impact of the political conflict on the HIV epidemic and other sexually transmitted blood borne infections (STBBI). More recently, we have expanded our partnership to include the Command of the Medical Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and together we will be conducting a countrywide integrated bio-behavioural survey to understand the unmet HIV and STBBI prevention needs among military personnel.
Contact us
Institute for Global Public Health (IGPH)
Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, Community Health Sciences
R070 Med Rehab Bldg, 771 McDermot Avenue
University of Manitoba (Bannatyne campus)
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3E 0T6
Canada