This Guide addresses a mismatch between what is known about how to respond to particular health problems in poor economies and what is actually done about them. It focuses on one cause of the problems that ensue from the mismatch – capacity constraints.
This Review focuses on a particular constraint that weakens the interface between the production of knowledge by researchers and its use by policy-makers – the capacity of these two groups of actors and their institutions. Weak capacity, at a number of levels, in the institutions and interfaces between knowledge generation and use in policymaking has been identified by the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) as a key strategic issue, but one about which there is still inadequate understanding. The Alliance focuses on health policy and systems research as an area which is increasingly recognized as key to strengthening the ability of national health systems to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) yet which remains relatively neglected alongside its better established and resourced counterpart, biomedical research.
