The K2P Team visited the NIPH in Phnom Penh-Cambodia in December 2019, for a four-day workshop on evidence-informed health policy for participants from NIPH and representatives from the policymaking institutions.
The first 3 days included an introduction to evidence-informed decision making, the role of evidence in health policy, systematic reviews, knowledge translation, and effective evidence search. Participants also had hands-on experience with group work on the development of a briefing note outline including a problem statement, underlying factors, policy options, and implementation considerations. Participants were also introduced to the different knowledge uptake strategies such as policy dialogues, citizen consultations, evidence-informed advocacy, stakeholder engagement, media engagement, and data visualization. By the end of the workshop, participants finalized and presented a briefing note outline along with its uptake plan and a list of stakeholders to be engaged throughout the different phases of the KT process.
After the workshop, a series of meetings were conducted with the policymaking institutions (MoH Department of Legislations, MoH Department of Personnel, and the National Social Protection Council) that were involved in the baseline scorecards. The purpose of the meetings was to verify the baseline scorecards, understand the scope of work of the partners and their governance structure and explore potential areas of collaboration with NIPH and the possibility to institutionalize it in a way that allows NIPH to be the “go-to institution" for evidence-informed health policy in Cambodia.
On the last day, the K2P team visited the NIPH offices and was introduced to the different departments within NIPH and the scope of work of each department. We also had a series of meetings with NIPH to discuss the fellowship program, the course outline, and the plan for the policy brief development along with the process of preparing for a national policy dialogue before wrapping up with the final next steps.