The Alliance has a long-standing and active partnership with Ethiopia, working with national institutions to strengthen health systems and evidence-informed policy-making – from embedded implementation research and capacity strengthening to noncommunicable diseases, emergency preparedness and modelling for policy.

What the Alliance supports

• Strengthening demand for evidence in government – through the KNOSA partnership in East Africa, supporting the Ministry of Health, at the minister's request, to establish the Policy, Strategy and Research Lead Executive Office to commission and use evidence for policy.
• Strengthening the governance of national public health agencies – supporting the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), with the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, to examine how national public health agencies are governed and financed for emergency preparedness; this was part of an 11-country learning programme whose cross-country meeting Ethiopia hosted in Addis Ababa in September 2025.
• Implementation research for noncommunicable diseases – working with the University of Gondar and national partners on integrated management of noncommunicable diseases, as part of a multi-country programme.
• Embedded implementation research to improve immunization – a long-running collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health and the University of Gondar, supported by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and in partnership with United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) (read the story), including recent work to restore coverage through research to improve vaccine uptake.
• University-led implementation research – supporting the University of Gondar to act as a technical support centre, embed implementation science in its curriculum, and connect researchers with policy-makers (building capacity to take embedded research to scale).
• Modelling for policy – working with the Amhara Public Health Institute on modelling to inform health system and financing decisions.
• Digital health for primary health care – examining how digital tools can strengthen primary health care management and service delivery.
• Research on the quality of care – including compassionate and respectful care, with WHO and the Ministry of Health.

What this has helped achieve

This partnership has supported concrete reforms and a growing body of local evidence. On emergency preparedness, EPHI is using the evidence to shift from donor-dependent towards domestic financing for readiness, and Ethiopia hosted the multi-country governance learning meeting in Addis Ababa in 2025. In immunization, embedded research contributed to a national community verification platform for immunization data and informed national strategy, including the Health Sector Transformation Plan. The work has also produced dedicated special issues of Ethiopian journals on embedded immunization research and on compassionate and respectful care, and helped establish the University of Gondar as a national technical support centre for implementation research.