Document Type

Brief

Publication Date

2006

Abstract

The effectiveness of development assistance depends on good decision-making. Many donors and international health agencies such as USAID, DFID, and WHO are placing more emphasis on the utilization of research results for policy and program development. Yet, while there is a long tradition of training researchers to produce research, there are few lessons on how to teach managers to request and use research results for making program decisions. Addressing this gap has been a major strategy of the Population Council’s Frontiers in Reproductive Health Program (FRONTIERS). Since its inception in 1998, FRONTIERS has complemented its support for operations research (OR) with an evolving range of capacity-building activities. This capacity building increases the number of program managers and researchers who can understand and conduct OR and utilize the resulting findings. As of 2005, over 700 program managers and researchers from 54 countries had participated in FRONTIERS capacity-building activities, including courses, training of trainers, infrastructure development efforts, and costing studies. This program brief presents lessons learned through FRONTIERS capacity-building work in fostering the increased use of OR by family planning and reproductive health programs.

DOI

10.31899/rh15.1026

Language

English

Project

Frontiers in Reproductive Health

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