The HRP Alliance supports the emergence of locally generated evidence during health and other humanitarian emergencies. Using an ad-hoc small grants mechanism with the support of regional hubs, the HRP Alliance enables community-based research that is
able to swiftly respond to emergencies.
In 2016, the HRP Alliance supported 12 research projects on the Zika virus outbreak in the Americas.
In 2019, the HRP Alliance selected 11 research groups to advance the knowledge on the sexual and reproductive health of migrants in the Americas.
Given the scarce evidence relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights and migration in the Americas, including risks of infectious diseases and health system capacity to respond, the need for context-specific and locally led evidence generation was deemed a priority for partners working on these issues.
The Zika outbreak itself changed rapidly over the period of research. These projects show the value of research conducted in the context of an emerging epidemic which can help shape public health response in real-time.