Essential National Health Research in South Africa: Towards National Consensus Building in Health Research

In the last two decades the Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED)
together with the Global Forum for Health Research and other collaborating agencies have
taken on the centre stage to advance the goals of ensuring that research for planning and
decision making is made accessible for those purposes. Whilst health research development
is being promoted there are very critical questions that must be addressed. For instance (i)
whose voice is heard at national and international gatherings on ENHR; (ii) is there a
national consensus position that can be spoken about? ; and (iii) to what extent is health
research essential or not? To this end, COHRED has put in place a mechanism to attempt
not only nationally, but also at a regional and eventually a global level to establish a
consensus position on ENHR.