ACRES I and II

Period: 2018 – Present 

In this project, we built on work started in 2010 around the rapid response service to build a Center of Excellence. We started the Center to institutionalize supporting policy and decision-makers at the national and sub-national governance levels with timely and relevant evidence. Policymakers’ target for the rapid response service expanded from the ministry of health to include non-health sectors, including education, gender, and agriculture. In addition, we sought to improve the knowledge and skills of the users and their support structures, including technical managers and civil service organizations, and develop a measurement tool to evaluate the impact of evidence on decisions and courses of action. 

We implemented the project in two phases. Phase I of the project lasted from 2018 to 2020, and phase II started in 2020. During this project, we created the Center for Rapid Evidence Synthesis, which has transitioned into an autonomous entity to further the application and research of knowledge brokering in Uganda and the region.