2008 annual report

Overview

During 2008 we have seen the rising importance of health systems research reflected in multiple ways: for example, the Task Force on Global Action for Health System Strengthening was established as follow-up to the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit; new health systems research initiatives were announced by the Canadian and Dutch governments; the Director-General of WHO held a high-level consultative meeting on the topic, and appointed a task force on research and learning for health systems as a consequence of this meeting. Despite these initiatives, the field remains poorly coordinated, and frequently misunderstood.

The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, unlike many other organizations active in the health systems area, has a core mandate for information exchange, advocacy and tracking the development of the health systems research field. This year, in addition to our three main objectives, the Alliance has also pursued a programme of work reflecting on the development of the field of health policy and systems research since the Mexico Ministerial Summit on Health Research in 2004.

This report describes the strategies that the Alliance employed during 2008 to promote the development of the HPSR field – the successes that it had and challenges that it faced.