Background

The Africa Research, Implementation Science, and Education (ARISE) Network is a collaborative network of 22-member institutions from ten Sub-Saharan African countries, the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, Germany, dedicated to strengthening public health research capacity across Africa. Recognizing that evidence-based approaches are crucial for effective program development, policy formulation, and optimal service delivery, particularly with diminishing resources, the ARISE Network focuses on addressing critical health challenges through collaborative initiatives, strategic partnerships, and capacity building. 
The current projects being implemented by the ARISE Network include the Nutrition-Related Noncommunicable Diseases in Adolescence and Youth in Africa (ARISE-NUTRINT) initiative and the Research Network for Design and Evaluation of Adolescent Health Interventions and Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa (DASH). The ARISE-NUTRINT initiative focuses on unravelling the complexities of and reducing nutrition-related NCDs among adolescents and youth in Sub-Saharan Africa, aiming to optimize evidence-based interventions and inform policy frameworks for sustainable impact. The DASH project has the overarching and long-term goal to improve adolescent health in SSA through rigorous population-based intervention and policy research. Funding for the ARISE-NUTRINT initiative is being provided by the European Commission (EC) while the DASH project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space as one of the Research Networks for Health Innovations in Sub-Saharan Africa (RHISSA).

After the very successful 2024 Inaugural Conference on Adolescent Health in Sub-Saharan Africa (CAH-SSA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and an even more fruitful 2025 CAH-SSA in Lagos, Nigeria - the ARISE Network will be hosting the CAH-SSA 2026 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  This will be a three days' event featuring adolescent health research capacity-building, holistic stakeholder engagement, and co-translation of research findings into feasible and context-specific policy action.

Objectives

To advance the transformation of evidence-based policy into contextual decisions for adolescent and youth health interventions across and beyond Africa.

Specific Objectives:

1. Bringing together beneficiaries, experts, policy leaders, health programmers, adolescent health specialists, and service providers for interrogating existing evidence and experiences on the importance of health research in improving adolescent health systems.
2. Shaping dialogue that promotes the exchange of ideas and innovative thinking among researchers, development and implementation partners, civil society, health workers and policymakers.
3. Enhancing research, capacity-building and evidence-based policymaking on adolescent health, the environment, social and policy issues related to development of the health sector.
4. Consensus building on integration as an instrument to accelerate the region’s inclusive and sustainable development.

Theme:

Showcasing Community-Driven Adolescent and Youth Health Sustainable Interventions.

Key sub-themes include Nutrition and Physical Activity; Mental Health and Violence; and Sexual and Reproductive Health. The sub-themes are designed to align with the overarching goals of the ARISE-NUTRINT and DASH Network, emphasizing collaboration, knowledge sharing, stakeholders' engagement and capacity building.

Approach

1. Strengthening and expanding the network: Through the DASH work on policy engagement and research transfer, the Network strengthens existing and develop new relationships with key policy makers and other stakeholders through continuous engagement at local level and at the periodic CAH-SSA. This ensures that the research generated is relevant and is communicated to policy makers in a timely fashion. The DASH ongoing engagement assure mutual cooperative and sustainable relationships and lay a foundation for improved policy and practice and subsequently for improved health of adolescents. Exchange at the DASH Conference on Adolescent Health in SSA also provides regular opportunities for discussion on the research progress and the implications of the findings. Critical stakeholders for adolescent health are invited at the CAH-SSA conversation to share their research and practice experiences and further inform the DASH initiatives.
2. Adolescent policies’ prioritization: The DASH Partners engage with stakeholders and adolescent health researchers in SSA at a half-day workshop at the CAH-SSA. The aim is to prioritize and select at least one policy per health domain, including one from western (Ghana), eastern (Tanzania) and southern SSA (South Africa) to be evaluated. A standardized evaluation approach is developed and subsequently used thereafter within and beyond the DASH project for policy evaluation.
3. Dissemination of DASH findings: Findings from the Longitudinal DASH Adolescent Health Study; Methods for design, evaluation and transportability of interventions; Adolescent health interventions to improve nutrition & physical activity, sexual & reproductive health, mental health & violence mitigation; as well as the Evaluation of population-level adolescent health policies research tasks are communicated in form of policy briefs and discussed with stakeholders at the CAH-SSA. The DASH Partners follow established guidance frameworks for relational policy engagement, to ensure that we are not only ‘pushing’ our research onto stakeholders, but are also ‘pulling’, by focusing on collaborative knowledge sharing and transfer, and on understanding stakeholder perspectives, context and priorities.
4. In-person trainings: Apart from the established curriculum at each partner institution, DASH MSc, PhD, and Postdoc students take part in targeted short-term training, i.e. in-person and online short courses – some of them embedded within the CAH-SSA. The short courses cover the adolescent-specific health domains, and research methods, including design and evaluation research, as well as research ethics. Online training materials will be made available to complement all in-person training activities, allowing individuals who cannot attend the CAH-SSA in person to benefit.