USC IIGH Engages in Partnership Building in Kenya

The leadership of the USC Institute for Inequalities in Global Health (IIGH) team has developed relationships and partnerships around the world for more than two decades on a range of critical global health issues. That experience and connectivity to the field is visible in recent collaborations in Kenya with civil society, academic and government partners.

IIGH has been working with Kenyan partners on approaches to adding research capacity to their new health initiatives, and a recent brainstorming trip concluded this month focused on connecting with partners on opportunities they saw for scaling up while developing clarity on what would be needed to create successful outcomes not only for research but for their programs. With Memorandums of Understanding signed last December with both AMREF and KELIN (The Kenya Legal & Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS), IIGH is well positioned to lend research skills and experience to these organizations, and move these collaborations forward in exciting and new ways.  

Laura Ferguson, Director, Program on Global Health & Human Rights and Assistant Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences, Department of Population and Public Health Sciences Keck School of Medicine of USC stated that the work was based on a host of previous learnings. “I’m excited about using what we learned in our global health work and having that inform guidelines and standards being developed. This is so critical and helpful on the ground. This creates opportunities to make sure the research is useful, and that it’s having the desired impact so we can really try and see through something that started at the global level but is now going to improve people’s lives here locally.”

The IIGH team will be working on establishing research and education hubs, developing education initiatives focused on verifiable and shareable practices and continuing to be involved with new projects at the intersection of health and human rights with an emphasis on improving the policy environment around HIV and key populations.

Originally published by USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health