Newly funded projects under the ANeSA initiative: Health Policy and Research Organizations and Cohort 1 of Implementation Research Teams

ANeSA aims to support greater realization of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)  

of underserved populations in sub-Saharan Africa by funding research and evidence use in five neglected areas: 

• family planning/contraceptive use 

• access to safe abortion (where legally permitted) and post-abortion care 

• adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights 

• prevention of sexual and gender-based violence and improving services for victims; and 

• advocacy for sexual and reproductive health and rights.   

Through gender-transformative implementation research, the ANeSA partnership generates and promotes the use of high-quality evidence on scalable interventions to transform service design and delivery. It also strengthens the development and implementation of policies and legal instruments and contributes to building equitable and sustainable health systems to address the intersecting challenges faced by underserved populations in Africa. The initiative supports two Health Policy and Research Organizations (HPROs) and will fund up to 16 Implementation Research Teams (IRTs) in two cohorts.  

We are pleased to announce the selected HPROs and Cohort 1 of IRTs. 

Health Policy and Research Organizations 

Two organizations were selected through a competitive, by-invitation, two-stage call for proposals to lead regional learning, capacity strengthening and knowledge mobilization. These HPROs were selected in July 2024 for the period of 2024-2030: 

• The African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA), based in Ghana, is the HPRO for West and Central Africa. 

• The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), based in Kenya, is the HPRO for East and Southern Africa. 

AfHEA and APHRC will collaborate closely to foster cross-regional exchange and support IRTs across sub-Saharan Africa.  

Cohort 1 of Implementation Research Teams 

Following an open, two-stage competitive call for proposals, eight IRTs have been selected to conduct research projects between 2025 and early 2028. Each IRT is led by a sub-Saharan African researcher working in partnership with a local civil society organization, a decision-maker from the research setting and a Canadian researcher.  

Learn more about the projects receiving support under ANeSA below. 

 Projects 

The following two Health Policy and Research Organizations are awarded funding under the ANeSA initiative:   

• East and Southern Africa Health Policy and Research Organization for the ANeSA Initiative 
• West and Central Africa Health Policy and Research Organization for the ANeSA Initiative  

The following eight Implementation Research Teams’ projects are awarded funding as part of Cohort 1 under the ANeSA initiative:    

• Gender-transformative approaches to address unmet adolescent sexual and reproductive health needs in rural Nigeria 
• Supporting adolescent girls to end child forced marriage in Turkana, Kenya 
• Co-Creating Contextually Appropriate Reproductive Health Education Teaching Approaches for 9-15 Year-Old Learners in the Upper East Region, Ghana 
• Tackling sex trafficking in Senegal: An intervention co-constructed with survivors 
• Enhancing Integration of Adolescent Family Planning and Post-Abortion Care in Northern Uganda: A Citizen Science, Gender-Transformative Approach  
• Caregiver Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Communication among Refugee and Host Communities in Southwestern and Northern Uganda (CONNECT) 
• Project Yolsgo: Promoting adolescent girls sexual and reproductive health in a humanitarian context in Burkina Faso  
• Addressing the sexual and reproductive health and rights of migrant and internally displaced women in informal settlements in Burkina Faso   

For more information, please contact us at SRHR-SDSR@idrc.ca.