The World Health Organization (WHO) and the University of Juba’s School of Medicine on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to support students’ research programs.
Dr. Humphrey Karamagi, WHO Country Representative in South Sudan, said they have been working in the country since before independence and have strong collaborations.
“So, having a Memorandum of Understanding with the premier university in South Sudan for us is a natural step because once we are working with you, whatever you come out with then becomes instructions for us in terms of how we move forward,” he said. “With the challenges in the health sector that South Sudan is facing, ranging from disease outbreaks, maternal and child health challenges, nutrition, and many others, these challenges require us to be able to constantly generate and use the best possible evidence on the table.”
Dr. Karamagi added: “It means that we can tap into or work together to generate the best possible evidence, the best kind of research, and also look at enhancing the capacity of our health professionals both here in the university but also out in the field and at the community level so that we can generate the evidence and use that evidence to inform the direction that we need to move for our people.”
For his part, Dr. Kenneth Lado Lino, Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Juba, said the MoU is based on a relationship on how to do research, place students in internships, and other benefits that they can get from WHO.
“The aim is to strengthen the health system through research that can generate evidence-based results that can help our health system to become stronger and will make a very big difference because for academia, their responsibility is to teach but more of it is to do research and generate evidence-based results that can help the country,” he said. We will be able to do a lot of studies that will help in improving the health system. The health system has a lot of challenges and most of the solutions we get are copy-paste from what is done in other countries and when we use them, they in most cases do not help us much.”
“So this allows us to address the gap in our country in terms of research, generating the results and informing the policymakers, that is the Ministry of Health, on the way forward and I believe that we are going to do better,” Dr. Lado added.
He however clarified that the MOU is a long-term partnership that can be modified at any time when they see that there is a gaps.
“The biggest support will be in terms of research and the support in the research will depend on the research proposals that we are going to forward to them (WHO). Part of it will be research proposals of master’s or PhD students who need some funding but the biggest jump will be of the staff of the school because for you to progress academically, you are measured against the publications,” Dr. Lado stated. “So, most of the lecturers now will have an opportunity of getting in the research and publishing many publications.”