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Starting April 2021, the Ministry of Health of the State of Eritrea in collaboration with the World Health Organization is in a process of revising a national health research agenda to be considered for the next five years (2022 – 2026). The main aim of developing priority health research agenda is to produce evidence on areas of current interest that would help the Ministry of Health in addressing its key strategic goals. The priority health research agenda will help the Ministry to ensure that the available the limited resources are allocated to the top priority research areas.

To facilitate the development process, the Department of Policy, Planning and Human Resource Development of the Ministry of Health established a core team and advisory group. The core team consulted all MOH departments/programs and Zonal Medical Offices between April 22 and May 31, 2021 and a situational analysis was also carried out and findings were reported to the advisory group. The main objective of the consultation was to capture top priority research agendas from institutions’ perspective and to involve stakeholders on the development process and accordingly ensure ownership of the document. The consultations have helped in the identification of the priority areas for research. These have been summarized into broad thematic areas or research domains.

To further refine and enrich the document, a series of consultative workshops were conducted in Crystal Hotel, Asmara, Eritrea between June 22 and June 24, 2021 with adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures. Dr. Berhane Debru, acting Director General of the Department of Policy, Planning and Human Resource Development, in his opening remarks, underscored the need for having a well-thought priority health research agenda. Dr Berhane said “For researches not to be budget driven and to produce evidence that would guide policy decisions and strategic goals, the ministry of health is developing a five-year priority health research agenda”. He also mentioned the importance of stakeholders’ engagement in enriching the draft document and acknowledged the input of the participants in optimizing it. 

All consultative groups accepted the already evolved thematic areas and have made several inputs in optimizing the sub-themes, areas of research focus and also suggested other new sub-themes. After three consecutive consultative workshops, the meeting was concluded on June 24, 2021 with significant inputs, recommendations and comments that greatly improved the quality of the draft document.  The participants agreed to:

Incorporate all comments/thoughts provided by the workshop participants while the memory is fresh. Circulate the draft document for further inputs.

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Participants of the consultative workshop were drawn from representatives of MOH Departments or programmers, healthcare professionals of different disciplines, academicians, representative of UN partners and line Ministries. The document will further be enriched with inputs from Zonal Medical Offices, through consultative workshops, and individual consultation of the higher officials of the ministry of health and partners. Finally, a larger workshop will be organized to reach a consensus. 

During the process, WHO played great role in providing technical as well as financial support.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of World Health Organization – Eritrea.