By Linda Naa Deide Aryeetey, GNA
Accra, March 29, GNA- Findings of the Support -System Research Project indicate that evidence generated from Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) engagements remain underutilised in health decision making.
It shows that CSOs generated evidence is undermined because decision-makers place higher value on quantitative peer-reviewed research than on the experiences of community members.
Speaking at the Support Systems project research findings validation and dialogue session held in Accra on Thursday, Professor Augustina Koduah, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Pharmacy, University of Ghana, said the role of civil society generated evidence remained poorly understood.
It recommended a collaborative approach in the usage if health evidence by combining CSOs grassroots evidence with the analytical capacity of government and research institutions for better health outcomes.
The Support System Project is a three-year research initiative funded through a grant from the Research Council of Norway, which examined the types of evidence Ghanaian CSOs produce and how it is used in district-level Primary Healthcare (PHC) decision-making.
It is a partnership between the University of Ghana, the Kenyan Medical Research Institute, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology; University of Oslo, and Health Information for All.
Prof Koduah said the study confirmed that CSOs contributed a wide spectrum of evidence from detailed, community-level data, operational monitoring and budget tracking, which had the potential to inform both strategic and programmatic health decisions.
She said despite its potential to strengthen inclusiveness, responsiveness, and accountability, civil society evidence faced capacity barriers such as the lack of methodological expertise by CSOs and their stability to consistently engage in decision-making.
“While decision-makers lack the tools to critically assess and incorporate community-generated data, formal governance structures further limit CSO representation, and entrenched power dynamics privilege government and international actors,” she said.
Prof Koduah called for national consultative dialogues to discuses best ways to use those evidences, which were often based on lived experiences and inherent years of practice.
She stressed the strengthening of the role of civil society evidence, which may lead to a more responsive, inclusive and accountable health systems.
Mr Unni Gopinathan, a Senior Scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, and facilitator of the Support Systems Project, said while the CSOs in Ghana lacked the methodological expertise, decision-makers also lacked the tools and training to appraise and integrate community-derived data.
In Ghana, the reliance on donor funding skewed CSO priorities toward external agendas and undermined their sustainability and autonomy, weakening the relevance of the evidence they produced, he said.
“In Ghana, most CSOs ‘follow the money,’ often aligning their priorities with donor agendas, which sometimes can be at odds with community needs,” Mr Gopinathan said.
The dialogue concluded with the CSOs committing to building their capacities and harmonising their evidence to make it more valid for national usage.
They resolved to collaborate with researchers in documenting their evidence to sustain validation and integration of their evidence throughout decision-making cycle of the health sector.
GNA
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