The grants, ranging between $40,000–$50,000, will be used for rapid research projects across nine countries — focused on core and emerging open government thematic priorities, such as natural resources governance, public procurement and fiscal transparency, the Sustainable Development Goals, and local budgeting processes. Each project will produce practical recommendations and tools to support open government actors as they consider gender and inclusion across open government co-creation and commitments.

“Open government is an underexplored platform for accelerating gender equality and closing critical gaps in information, access, and participation for citizens around the world,” said Allison Merchant, senior gender advisor for Results for Development and the Open Government Partnership. “This action-oriented research will serve a foundational role in identifying how open government can enhance gender-informed commitments across key thematic areas, and how OGP can better facilitate the input of women’s perspectives on issues of importance to their communities.”

“Meaningful inclusion is a critical part of safeguarding our democracies. We believe that when we open our governments, we must open them for all people. We look forward to bringing discussions on what works to advance gender equality to the OGP Global Summit in Ottawa, where advancing gender — and inclusion more broadly — is a cornerstone of my OGP co-chair agenda with the Government of Canada,” said Nathaniel Heller, OGP co-chair and executive vice president of integrated strategies, at Results for Development.

Funding for these grants was provided by the International Development Research Centre and the Government of Canada. More information about the grantees and their respective research projects can be found below.

Grantee: CARE International

Topic: Opening open government: Does participatory and gendered political economy analysis make open government processes more responsive to women?

Country focus: The Philippines

Grantee: Equal Measures 2030

Topic: Understanding Intersections between the SDGs, open government, and gender advocacy: the perspective of girls and women’s rights organizations in three OGP countries

Country focus: Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya

Grantee: Oxfam Novib

Topic: The power of women in local budgeting: supporting marginalized women in Kairouan (Tunisia) to become active fiscal citizens.

Country focus: Tunisia

Grantee: Tecnicas Rudas

Topic: Gender Indicators for open natural resource governance

Country focus: Mexico, Peru, Colombia

Grantee: Africa Freedom of Information Centre

Topic: Deepening open government through women’s participation in public contracting

Country focus: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa

This call for proposals was commissioned under the Feminist Open Government Initiative, a collaboration between Results for Development, the International Development Research Centre and Government of Canada, and the Open Government Partnership. The call for proposals received more than 90 proposals from a diverse collection of organizations and research institutions and were selected by a selection committee including governments, OGP support unit, IDRC, and civil society actors from around the world. We thank all who submitted for their interest in expanding this field.

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About Results for Development
Results for Development (R4D) is a leading non-profit global development partner. We collaborate with change agents around the world — government officials, civil society leaders and social innovators — to create strong systems that support healthy, educated people. We help our partners move from knowing their goal to knowing how to reach it. We combine global expertise in health, education and nutrition with analytic rigor, practical support for decision-making and implementation and access to peer problem-solving networks. Together with our partners, we build self-sustaining systems that serve everyone and deliver lasting results. Then we share what we learn so others can achieve results for development, too. For more information, visit our website at: www.r4d.org

About the International Development Research Centre
The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is a Canadian Crown corporation funding research in developing countries to advance knowledge and solve practical development problems. Part of Canada’s foreign affairs and development efforts, IDRC invests in knowledge, innovation, and solutions to improve lives and livelihoods in the developing world. IDRC works with many stakeholders including civil society organisations, think tanks, regional organisations, and government departments in the developing world to drive large-scale positive change. www.idrc.ca

Open Government Partnership
Open Government Partnership brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive and accountable. In the spirit of multi-stakeholder collaboration, OGP is overseen by a Steering Committee including representatives of governments and civil society organizations.

The Open Government Partnership formally launched on September 20, 2011, when the 8 founding governments (Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States) endorsed the Open Government Declaration and announced their country action plans. Since 2011, 79 OGP participating countries and 20 subnational governments have made over 3,100 commitments to make their governments more open and accountable. www.opengovpartnership.org

Photo © Open Government Partnership

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At Results for Development, Dr. Chehidi is a senior fellow working with and support education leaders in Africa with their policy priorities and implementation challenges. Throughout his career, Dr. Chehidi has focused on strengthening the capacities of ministries of education to achieve policy objectives and on aligning education systems’ goals and programs with social and economic development goals. Before joining R4D, Dr. Chehidi worked for the Ministry of Education of Tunisia where served as an advisor to the Minister and coordinated analytical work that informed decisions pertaining to the implementation of the July 2002 Education Act.

In 2007, Dr. Chehidi led the Ministry’s general review of ICT strategies and programs and the development of the new strategy (2009-2014), re-organized the ministry’s departments in charge of the integration of new technologies, and led the efforts to establish Tunisia’s National Educational Technology Center. In 2011, he joined ADEA, where he founded and led the continental ICT in Education Task Force and the organization of the “African Ministerial Forum on ICT integration in education and training,” the leading continental high-level policy dialogue platform on ICT in Education and Training. In 2015, he joined GESCI and led the organization’s expansion into francophone Africa and North Africa, coordinated the development of GESCI’s new strategy and led its engagement with governments and international organizations.

Dr. Chehidi holds a PhD in comparative area studies from Sophia University Tokyo, an MA in international relations from the International University of Japan and a B.Sc. in business administration from the American College of Greece. He is a native speaker of Arabic and speaks English, French and Italian.

Board affiliations and titles:

• Member of the African Union Commission CESA-ICT in Education Cluster
• Member of the UNESCO Advisory Group on Best Practices in Mobile Learning
• Member of the program committee of the Pan-African University’s E-University Project
• Knight of the Tunisian National Order of Merit for Contribution to Education – (Presidential Decree 2008).

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Reaching the World Health Assembly targets for nutrition by 2025 will require substantial increases in funding from domestic governments and donor agencies over 2015 levels.

The Investment Framework for Nutrition, a collaboration between the World Bank, Results for Development and 1,000 Days, estimated that $4 billion in additional domestic contributions, and $2.6 billion in additional donor contributions would be required per year over 10 years to scale up a core package of high-impact nutrition-specific interventions. Using a detailed analysis of OECD-DAC data and program documents, we recently reported that the donor community is not only missing its target for increased spending in 2016, but has actually reduced funding for that core package of interventions below 2015 levels.

Are domestic governments picking up the slack?

Domestic spending on nutrition by low and middle-income countries has historically been difficult to track over time due to a lack of complete and reliable data on nutrition expenditures. The 2018 Global Nutrition Report reported a small uptick in budget allocations for nutrition-specific programs (and larger growth for nutrition-sensitive programs), using data collated by the SUN Movement Secretariat for 25 countries. However, as many countries routinely succeed in mobilizing and spending only a portion of what has been nominally allocated, budget allocations alone say more about aspiration than about material investments in critical nutrition programs. SUN budget data are important for civil society to advocate for governments to increase their ambition level, and provide broad information across all relevant sectors for nutrition. However, in most countries, it has not yet been possible to match these allocations against actual expenditures; and some SUN countries that represent a large share of global burden of malnutrition are not yet represented with trend data from the SUN budget exercise (e.g. Nigeria and Ethiopia).

A complementary data source for nutrition-specific program expenditure is the System of Health Accounts data gathered by governments supported by WHO and other partners. This comprehensive accounting of the health sector has been ongoing in a number of countries for many years, but only more recently have some countries routinely disaggregated expenditures to combat “nutritional deficiencies” from other priorities (see technical note below for more information on this method and its limitations). This provides a new opportunity to examine trends: 29 countries have relevant data for both 2015 and 2016, while another three (Cabo Verde, Ethiopia, Tunisia) have data for 2014 and 2016 that permit extrapolation.

The picture emerging from the data reinforces the challenges the nutrition community face in reaching the World Health Assembly targets — as well as the urgent need for renewed global commitment to financing key nutrition programs.”

Overall, across this set of countries, spending has not risen as we might have hoped. Of the 32 countries, only 12 saw any increase in spending, shown in blue in the figure below. Four countries (Sri Lanka, Samoa, Burkina Faso and Armenia) saw a drop of less than 2 percent. The remaining 16 countries saw more substantial declines, shown in red.

In absolute terms, the story is even more negative. We estimate that total domestic spending on health programs targeted at nutritional deficiencies across these 32 countries dropped from $221 million in 2015 to $183 million in 2016 — a drop of around 17 percent. This decrease was driven by very large absolute declines in Nigeria (dropping $25 million (from $46 million to $21 million) and Tanzania (dropping from $28 million to $17 million). In Nigeria, home to 2.3 million wasted children, that translates to a decline from $0.25 per capita to an even lower $0.11 per capita of domestic expenditure for nutrition within the health sector between 2015 and 2016.

When compounded with our earlier analysis demonstrating that donor financing for nutrition-specific programs may have dropped by 9 percent between 2015 and 2016, the overall financing picture for nutrition is alarming. Nonetheless, there are a few countries where the trend is more optimistic, notably Mali, which increased domestic spending on nutritional deficiencies from $2 million to $5 million between 2015 and 2016 (representing growth of $0.17 per person from an admittedly low base of $0.12 per person). Other positive stories are seen in Niger, Ethiopia and Côte d’Ivoire, all of which saw more than a $1 million increase; among smaller countries, Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe both more than doubled their spending.

As we look toward Nutrition for Growth in Tokyo as a critical milestone for efforts to combat all forms of malnutrition, it is clear that global efforts must be redoubled to increase funding for critical nutrition programs. This requires strong leadership from nutrition champions in country governments and donor agencies driving enhanced resource mobilization efforts, buttressed by civil society advocacy and accountability efforts, and better leveraging of the private sector. While the overall picture on domestic financing we’ve described is disappointing, we must also grasp any opportunities to learn from successes — looking at countries who have succeeded in raising their funding for nutrition, but also reaching outside the nutrition community for examples of success in mobilizing domestic resources for other health priorities. We need to renew commitment and reinvigorate the conversation on domestic finance for nutrition, but we do not need to reinvent the wheel.

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NOTE: The SHA framework enables data to be internally consistent and comparable, while also avoiding double counting. However, there are some limitations when considering nutrition. First, the SHA framework captures expenditures within the health sector only and excludes expenditures for multisectoral nutrition programs outside of health. Second, within the health sector, the ‘nutritional deficiencies’ disease code (DIS.3) mainly captures direct nutrition-specific interventions, and it is likely to miss nutrition expenditures delivered through wider maternal and child health programs or infectious disease programs to avoid double counting. For example, a reproductive health program that includes expenditures on micronutrient supplementation would likely be coded as ‘reproductive health’ rather than ‘nutritional deficiencies,’ and it is not standard to split expenditures across both disease codes. Therefore, the data shown here may be an underestimate of total domestic expenditure on nutrition within health that would account for all types of nutrition investment, whether through direct programming or integrated within a wider program.

Photo © Morgana Wingard, USAID

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As a communications associate for R4D, Ms. Abdulkadir works with the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage (JLN) Network coordinating team. In this role, she produces content for various communications vehicles, including the JLN country member newsletter, a general UHC newsletter, and a monthly round-up. Other responsibilities include developing social media content and curating resources and other content for the JLN’s website and member portal.

Prior to joining R4D, Ms. Abdulkadir co-produced the 2015 Communications and Marketing social media plan for the World Cocoa Foundation and worked for Nigeria’s ministry of communication technology and Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission. She also created a networking platform for Africans in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, an initiative created to provide marketing assistance to emerging African businesses.

Ms. Abdulkadir holds an MA in communications and public relations from Trinity Washington University and a BA in mass communications from Igbinedion University Okada, Nigeria. She speaks English and her local Nigerian dialect (pidgin).

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The network — known simply as Linked — is co-led by Results for Development (R4D), the Tbilisi, Georgia-based Curatio International Foundation and the Sri Lanka-based Institute for Health Policy.

The network is a foundational part of the Gavi 5.0 strategy, which focuses on reaching “zero-dose” children and missed communities. Estimates suggest that by 2030, 70% of the world’s under-immunized populations will live in middle-income countries. Linked is one of the core mechanisms through which Gavi connects with, supports and influences key immunization change agents across 24 middle-income countries who have graduated from or never received Gavi’s financial assistance.

Since 2019, Linked has convened immunization practitioners, policymakers and partners from middle-income countries for a facilitated process designed to allow them to share experiences, identify common challenges to immunization programs and tap into one another’s implementation knowledge. Linked supports countries as they translate those learnings into locally driven solutions that are equitable, resilient and sustainable.

“We are so pleased that Gavi recognizes the benefits of this relatively low-cost approach to engaging immunization program leaders across many countries and supporting them to drive their own progress. We are delighted to continue our collaboration with Gavi,” R4D CEO Gina Lagomarsino said.

Linked’s two-year extension will build upon the network’s initial successes, which were catalogued in an impact brief. This brief offers evidence of meaningful policy and program impact through the Linked network.

“At R4D, we have been honing our collaborative learning approaches over the past 15 years. We’re thrilled that Linked has provided solid evidence that collaborative learning contributes to critical health outcomes,” said Program Director Elizabeth Ohadi.

Linked Impact Brief

Discover how Linked's collaborative learning approach is accelerating countries' progress toward improving access to lifesaving vaccines.

Read more

Eleven Linked member countries have developed plans to translate learnings from Linked engagements to actions which strengthen their immunization programs — and nearly 90% of network countries with an action plan say they have made progress in implementation.

The learnings from Linked engagements have supported countries to strengthen the implementation of immunization program activities to improve coverage and equity, including the development of a cost-effectiveness study for the introduction of the HPV vaccine in Tunisia; strengthening the interpersonal communication skills of immunization providers in Uzbekistan; the development and operationalization of a strategy for caregiver education in Vietnam; and the integration of a zero-dose reporting mechanism in the national immunization registry in Armenia.

In a 2023 member survey, 100% of Linked member countries reported being highly satisfied with the technical quality of learning activities and resources, and more than two-thirds (71%) agreed that Linked has contributed to their progress toward sustainable and equitable immunization coverage and the sustainable introduction of new vaccines.

“Facilitating knowledge transfer and peer-to-peer exchange of good practices and lessons learned is a proven way to drive better immunization performance, as demonstrated by Linked,” said Ivdity Chikovani, research unit director at the Curatio International Foundation. Chikovani is also Linked’s country outreach lead for health policy and systems expertise.

“During the next two years, Linked will continue to provide a learning space between countries from different regions, embracing diversity and innovation,” Chikovani added.

Linked will pilot a new subnational peer learning platform in Indonesia in its next phase. It will also transition its focus from regional engagements to cross-regional and global learning engagements.

Learn more about Linked here.

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About Results for Development
Results for Development (R4D) is a leading nonprofit global development partner. We collaborate with change agents — government officials, civil society leaders and social innovators — supporting them as they navigate complex change processes to achieve large-scale, equitable outcomes in health, education and nutrition. We work with country leaders to diagnose challenges, co-create, innovate and implement solutions built on evidence and diverse stakeholder input, and engage in learning to adapt, iterate and improve. We also strengthen global, regional and country ecosystems to support country leaders with expertise, evidence, and innovations. R4D helps country leaders solve their immediate challenges today, while also strengthening systems and institutions to address tomorrow’s challenges. And we share what we learn so others around the world can achieve results for development too. www.R4D.org

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Mr. Kaddar has worked for thirteen years in the World Health Organization (WHO) focusing on health services and immunization program costing and financing, vaccine manufacturing, procurement, financing, and pricing. He has conducted training, technical assistance, and operational research activities in health system development, transition and sustainability challenges, private sector development, institutional development and capacity building, project and program design and evaluation.

Highlights of his career include:

• As a member of the GAVI immunization financing and the health system strengthening task teams, he advised multilateral organizations on global policies and processes, developed guidelines and tools, and provided support to regions and countries in health system strengthening, immunization planning, costing, financing and health system and program performance and evaluation.
• As an initiator and leader at WHO-HQ of the Vaccine Product, Price and Procurement (V3P) project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he coordinated activities with partners and countries and oversaw the development of an online information platform on vaccine product, price, and procurement information.
• In Morocco, he served as senior technical adviser to the ministry of health and led the project on decentralization and health system financing and management reforms
• As senior health economist for the Partnerships for Health Reform (PHR) project with Abt Associates, he designed, conducted, and managed regional training courses and activities on health economics for policymakers and managers in North Africa in coordination with RESSMA (Regional Network on Health Economics and Systems) and WHO-EMRO.
• He led a USAID/PHR special initiative on financing and sustainability issues for childhood immunization programs where he designed, contributed, and managed country case studies and provided advice and technical support to countries and partners on immunization financing.
• At the International Children’s Centre (ICC/CIE-CIDEF) in Paris, France he headed the department of planning and developed overall strategy, performed technical quality control, managed staff, projects, and programs. He conducted policy dialogue with representatives of donors and countries from West and central Africa, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Ecuador, Vietnam and Laos.

Mr. Kaddar is member of International Health Economics Association, (IHEA) and the American Association of Public Health (AAPH). He has also been a member of the executive committees of International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR), the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) and RESSMA, Regional Health Economics Network.

Mr. Kaddar holds a doctorate in economics from Oran University, Algeria, an MA from the University of Grenoble, France and a public health diploma from University of Nancy, France. A native Arabic speaker, he is also fluent in French and English.

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