Dr Deepika Saluja
Thought Leadership Advisor & Program Manager, Ubuntu Initiative for Building Partnerships in Africa
Ubuntu Reflections Ep 2 - Unpacking barriers and facilitators to cross-cultural sense making for building equitable health research partnerships
In this episode, Dr Deepika Saluja speaks with Dr Kefilath Bello about how impactful research and research partnership requires an intentional sense-making process that connects and respects diverse cultural contexts. Kefi highlights through examples, that the willingness to engage with communities has to be accompanied with dedicated resources including time, budget, facilitation skills; to go beyond the tokenistic approach, that helps build trust and long-term relationships with community members and understand their contexts better.
Dr Kefilath Bello is the Head, Health Policy and Systems Department, Centre for Research in Human Reproduction and Demography (CERRHUD) in Benin, West Africa. She is completing her PhD from the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM), Antwerp and the KU Leuven in Belgium. Her work focuses on promoting evidence-informed decision-making for improving access and quality of Primary Health Care services.
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About the series: Ubuntu Reflections: Unpacking the everyday dynamics of building equitable partnerships
Equitable research partnerships are central to advancing academic global health, particularly to break the power hierarchies, strengthening local capacities and engaging communities in a meaningful manner. However, very little is known about the practical experiences and challenges of navigating and implementing the recommendations provided in the literature (in the form of dos and don'ts) in everyday engagement towards building and strengthening global health partnerships.
In this series, we attempt to extend the conversation through discussing practical experiences, examples and learnings from experts based in different regions, and unpack these less talked about layers of building equitable partnerships on an everyday basis, what does it entail, the challenges encountered, and tools used to navigate these challenges.