Research Prioritization Process & Topics

The U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) Insights Project, in collaboration with the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Senegal, carried out a broad stakeholder consultation process to identify pressing evidence gaps in malaria strategy and guidelines and to define a set of country-driven operational research (OR) and program evaluation (PE) priorities to address the gaps. Given the emphasis placed on locally-led research in PMI’s latest strategy to end malaria faster, the consultative process engaged 128 global, national, and local stakeholders from 26 countries in order to ground the topics in malaria endemic country perspectives.

The process resulted in a defined set of 33 OR and PE topics that reflect critical evidence gaps that are impeding many NMPs’ achievement of high coverage of malaria interventions and the effective deployment of new tools. Additional information and resources can be found below.

Evaluation Committee

An external evaluation committee was formed to support the evaluation and prioritization of the identified operational research and program evaluation topics. The committee was formed of 17 members of NMPs, malaria-endemic research institutions, and WHO country staff from sub-Sarahan Africa. The committee was responsible for evaluating and ranking the identified priority topics across a set of six defined evaluation criteria: (1) broad relevance, (2) high impact on malaria burden, (3) improves efficiency, (4) addresses inequities, (5) scalability and sustainability, and (6) feasibility of the research. Evaluation scores across the criteria were aggregated across evaluators, resulting in an overall ranking across topics.

Evaluation committee representation

Research Prioritization Brief

This research brief provides an overview of the objectives, approach, and findings from the country-driven process that led to defining a priority list of 33 malaria operational research (OR) and program evaluation (PE) topics for the sub-Saharan Africa region. The topics reflect critical evidence gaps that are impeding many national malaria programs’ achievement of high coverage of malaria interventions and the effective deployment of new tools. The full prioritized list of OR and PE topics that emerged from the process is also included in the brief.

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Prioritized List of Malaria Operational Research & Program Evaluation Topics

This resource includes the 33 malaria operational research and program evaluation topics identified through the prioritization process.

English Version

Full Report: Malaria Operational Research and Program Evaluation Priorities for the sub-Saharan Africa Region

This report describes the process undertaken to develop a country-driven list of priority malaria operational research (OR) and program evaluation (PE) topics for the sub-Saharan Africa region. Bringing forward the perspectives of malaria experts from 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the consultative process resulted in a prioritized list of 33 OR and PE topics spanning the areas of prevention, chemoprevention, case management, surveillance, monitoring and evaluation, and other crosscutting themes. The topics reflect critical evidence gaps that are impeding many national malaria programs’ achievement of high coverage of malaria interventions and the effective deployment of new tools.

This resource is intended to maximize the relevance and impact of OR and PE investments by galvanizing a coordinated effort among funding agencies, national malaria programs, and technical partners to fill critical knowledge gaps identified by malaria-endemic country stakeholders.

English Version