Action to protect the independence and integrity of global health research
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Date
2019
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BMJ Global Health
Abstract
In a recent Viewpoint in the Lancet, some
of us shared our experience of censorship
in donor-funded evaluation research and
warned about a potential trend in which
donors and their implementing partners use
ethical and methodological arguments to
undermine research.1
Reactions to the Viewpoint—and lively
debate at the 2018 Global Symposium on
Health Systems Research—suggest that similar
experiences are common in implementation
and policy research commissioned by
international donors to study and evaluate
large-scale, donor-funded health interventions
and programmes, which are primarily
implemented in low resource settings. ‘We
all have the same stories’, was one of the first
comments on the Viewpoint, followed by
many private messages divulging instances of
personal and institutional pressure, intimidation
and censorship following attempts to
disseminate unwanted findings. Such pressure
comes from major donors and from
international non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) obliged to have an external
assessment but who then maintain a high
degree of confidentiality and control.
Description
Keywords
Action, Independence, Global health research
Citation
Storeng KT, Abimbola S, Balabanova D, et al. Action to protect the independence and integrity of global health research. BMJ Global Health 2019;4:e001746. doi:10.1136/ bmjgh-2019-001746