Taking it to 180 and beyond
In 2022, APHRC maintained its commitment to excellence as an established thought leader in research and policy influence in Africa. We experienced prodigious growth in our operations, governance, and programmatic profile, solidifying the Center’s place regionally and globally as a critical player in the evidence-informed decision-making space. The collective effort of our teams is evident in the many momentous wins, particularly on the policy front across the region.

Keeping with our new strategic plan, we are accelerating our efforts toward greater policy impact. In 2022, we saw evidence generated over the years through different programs contribute to government policies, frameworks, guidelines, and strategies in the region.

We documented 21 policy wins in Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, and Liberia thanks to a robust Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning framework.
The Center’s contribution to policies across Africa was particularly notable in sexual and reproductive health and rights, maternal, newborn, and child health, nutrition, urban health, non-communicable diseases, sanitation, youth empowerment, and early childhood education. Below we highlight a few policy wins.

At the continental level, our recommendation to invest in technology-driven solutions to expand and enhance access to sexual and reproductive health services based on a study in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda was endorsed by the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) Special Rapporteur for Women’s Rights in Africa.

Regionally, APHRC conducted a study on abortion incidence and the severity of related complications in Sierra Leone in collaboration with the Ministry of Health Sierra Leone, Statistics Sierra Leone, and the Guttmacher Institute. The findings have informed the Safe Motherhood Bill, which aims to reduce maternal mortality and improve maternal health outcomes. The Bill has been gazetted and is set to be tabled in parliament for adoption.

In Burkina Faso and Malawi, our studies on understanding the lived experiences of pregnant and parenting adolescents have informed the national policy on school re-entry for teenage mothers.

Closer home, the Center participated in developing the new Adolescents and Young People Reproductive Health policy towards enhancing the sexual and reproductive health status of adolescents and young people in Kenya. Further, partnering with Kenya’s National Council for Population and Development, we facilitated stakeholder dialogue on assessing drivers of pregnancy, HIV infection, and sexual and gender-based violence among adolescents in 11 counties across the country.

Within the education sector, evidence from our work on parental engagement in education and youth empowerment has informed the review of the parental empowerment and engagement policy, guidelines, and programs in Kenya.
Moreover, our research in Early Childhood Development informed the ongoing revision of the Nairobi Childcare Facilities Act of 2017.