The Ifakara Health Institute, as part of the IMARISHA research consortium between South Africa and Burkina Faso, is taking part in the Policy Review Workshop being held from October 6–10, 2025, in South Africa. 

In Tanzania, the project is led by Dr. Sally Mtenga, guiding Ifakara’s contribution to this important regional effort. The regional learning and collaboration event brings together researchers, and gender experts from partner countries to engage in dialogue, exchange experiences, and strengthen collective approaches to health policy analysis frameworks and processes.

Over the course of five days, participants are working through an intensive agenda designed to build capacity and foster collaboration. The sessions focus on sharing lessons in systematic policy review approaches, mapping policy documents at global, regional, and national levels, piloting and refining policy extraction and key informant interview (KII) tools, as well as policy processes, actors, and institutional frameworks. In addition, the workshop provides space for developing a roadmap to guide ongoing data collection, management, and analysis across the consortium.

The workshop marks an important milestone in efforts to strengthen Primary Health Care (PHC) systems. By placing emphasis on the gendered dimensions of workplace safety, the IMARISHA consortium is working to ensure that health workers across the region are supported in safe, equitable, and enabling environments. This collective effort not only seeks to improve the wellbeing of health workers but also to contribute to better health outcomes for the communities they serve.