The United States Agency for International Development has selected a consortium led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Carolina Population Center to help the agency work with other countries to build up their health information systems under a potential $180 million associates cooperative agreement.
UNC says the Measure Evaluation Phase IV program’s goal is to help the agency’s international partners build up their capacity to collect, analyze and use health information to make decisions and evaluate impacts of health issues.
USAID has set a base period of performance for five years and could extend work for an additional five years.
Consortium members include:
- Futures Group
- ICF International (NASDAQ: ICFI)
- John Snow Inc.
- Management Sciences for Health
- Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
“We will respond to the complexity of this task by applying more systems thinking, ” said Jim Thomas, a project director at USAID.
“There are many moving parts affecting each other and systems thinking provides ways to achieve progress in the midst of complexity, ” Thomas added.
The consortium aims “to assist USAID in not only improving health information systems, but also in building the overall monitoring and evaluation capacities of its priority country partners, †said Leo Ryan, a senior vice president at ICF.
UNC and its partners will also focus their efforts on country-level capacity to manage health information systems, resources and staff; as well as methods, tools and approaches to address health information challenges and gaps.
