SPEED Uganda - Experience of South- South Collaboration

During 4-7 March, 2019, a team of eight health practitioners from Bangladesh visited Uganda to participate in South-South Collaboration programme to learn about health systems innovations in Uganda. That collaboration programme was jointly supported by ‘Strengthening Health Applying Research Evidence’ SHARE project by icddr,b, Bangladesh and ‘Supporting Policy Engagement for Evidence-based Decisions (SPEED) for Universal Health Coverage in Uganda (SPEED) project by Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH), Uganda, led by Prof. Freddie Ssengooba. Both SHARE and SPEED are sister projects under the Supporting Public Health Institutes Programme (SPHIP) supported by the European Union.

Along with Dr. Iqbal Anwar, Scientist & Director of SHARE project, icddr,b, Md. Ruhul Amin Talukder, Joint Secretary and Md. Alamgir Hossain, Deputy Secretary from Ministry of Health and Family Welfares (MoHFW); Prof. Dr. Nasima Sultana, Additional Director General (Admin), Directorate General of Health Service (DGHS); Dr. Khaliquzzaman from Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU); Dr. Sohana Shafique and Dr. Sadika Akhter from Universal Health Coverage programme of HSPSD, icddr,b and Dr. Shakila Banu from TTU, icddr,b joined the South-South Collaboration programme.

This knowledge exchange programme helped the Bangladesh participants to learn about ‘Policy Implementation Barometer (PIB)’ developed by the SPEED project and how it works in monitoring progress in use of evidence in health policy-making and their implementation. Through this visit, participants understood the policies and programme on prevention and control selected health problems in Uganda in the context of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and experienced how the public health workforce is mainstreamed in Uganda. SPEED and SHARE project team members also explored opportunities for future collaborations beyond 2020. Uganda team is interested to learn how Bangladesh has been achieved ‘good health at low cost’. A team from Uganda along with Government representatives is looking forward to visit Bangladesh to attend the Community Health Workers (CHW) Conference in Bangladesh in November 2019. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will also be signed between icddr,b and MakSPH that will strengthen this collaboration and make it sustainable.