GB-COH-RC000672-NIHR204828 University of Sussex A UK and low-and-middle-income-country (LMIC) partnership jointly led by the University of Sussex and The Aurum Institute, South Africa. Starting in January, 2024, the four-year project aims to evaluate interventions to strengthen community and health system resilience to extreme weather events on vulnerable populations living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and/or tuberculosis in Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia. These three countries are exposed to recurrent extreme weather events resulting in injuries, loss of lives, damage to infrastructure, including of healthcare facilities, often resulting in their inability to provide care during these extreme events. The research findings will be analysed with stakeholders to develop interventions and policies that will be evaluated for their effectiveness in increasing the resilience of healthcare facilities during extreme weather events. The project has nine objectives: 1. Systematically engage communities, health service implementers, and policymakers from health determining sectors to prioritise needs and design interventions/adaptations to strengthen health service delivery in the context of extreme weather events. 2. Undertake community and health service delivery vulnerability and adaptive capacity assessments to establish health-related extreme weather events vulnerability baseline in study countries. 3. Develop system dynamics models to evaluate the impact of co-created interventions for improving health system resilience. 4. Quantify the value for money of identified interventions. 5. Strengthen existing partnership between the University of Sussex, Africa Health Research Institute, South Africa, Zambart, Zambia and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and extend the partnership to include the two Aurum institutes, civil society (Groundwork) and industry (Black box and Pista). 6. Develop a sustainable network of researchers with expertise in climate and health research. 7. Train the next generation of researchers and foster research leadership on climate change and health. 8. Educate the health workforce about climate change and impact on human health to better prepare the health system to respond during extreme weather events. 9. Facilitate South-South and North-South sharing of best practice in research and advocacy in climate change and health. LSHTM Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) Black Box Design Fundacao Aurum Groundwork The Aurum Institute Zambart Pista 44847 451909 848855 848721 834403 GB-COH-RC000672-NIHR200140 University of Sussex A UK and low- and middle-income country (LMIC) research partnership, Social Sciences for Severe Stigmatising Skin Diseases (5S) Foundation aims to fill gaps between knowledge, treatment and practice around three diseases, podoconiosis, mycetoma and scabies, working in Ethiopia, Sudan and Rwanda. 1. To examine the cultural logics and social and economic contexts of podoconiosis, mycetoma and scabies; 2. To understand the dynamics and dimensions of stigma; 3. To investigate how all three diseases have been conceptualised at national and international policy levels; 4. To evaluate existing interventions using social science perspectives; 5. To refine the conceptual framework developed to guide the Foundation’s research; 6. To develop a comprehensive intervention strategy for each disease; 7. To support endemic-country training posts (PhD and postdoctoral) in a manner that will leave enduring capacity or social science research; 8. To facilitate South-South and North-South sharing of best practice in research and advocacy applicable to a wide range of stigmatising conditions in low-resource settings. University of Rwanda OSSREA, Ethiopia University of Khartoum Institute of Development Studies 241610 745068 973000 979816 580441 GB-COH-RC000672-NIHR131996 University of Sussex Scientific Objectives: 1. investigate pathogen genetic diversity and/or host susceptibility to each condition 2. improve understanding of the disease burden and distribution of each condition through a combination of field-based mapping and geo-spatial modelling 3. identify new diagnostics and treatments for scabies 4. evaluate services to improve prevention, diagnosis and care of these conditions, in particular integrating these with other skin-NTDs Strategic Objectives: 1. develop a network of researchers studying podoconiosis, mycetoma and scabies across three DAC countries 2. increase societal awareness and expand the evidence base for national and international policy relating to these three NTDs Capacity Strengthening Objectives: 1. support endemic-country PhD and postdoctoral training posts so that capacity for research into NTDs is expanded 2. strengthen the research environment in which our collaborators and trainees work Since 2017, the NIHR Global Health Research Unit (GHRU) on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) at Brighton and Sussex Medical School has carried out a highly successful needs-driven research programme in partnership with Addis Ababa University and the Armauer Hansen Research Institute in Ethiopia, and the Mycetoma Research Centre, University of Khartoum, Sudan. Our GHRU has focused on three conditions considered severely neglected in terms of research, public attention and political will: 1. podoconiosis (a progressive, disabling form of leg swelling seen in barefoot farmers) 2. mycetoma (a destructive infection of the skin and underlying tissues) 3. scabies (a profoundly irritating skin condition caused by burrowing mites) Our studies have spanned wide-ranging disciplines to address questions directly relevant to national and global NTD elimination agendas. This research has been conducted within a strong framework of capacity strengthening which has developed infrastructure and financial management at partner institutions and trained 11 PhD students and five post-doctoral researchers. All early career researchers have benefitted from training opportunities within and beyond their countries, and from the NIHR Global Health Academy. We will build on these strong foundations in the next five years and expand the partnership to include the University of Rwanda. We will use a range of methods to investigate new research questions clustered into four interrelated themes: 1. mechanisms of disease 2. geospatial mapping 3. diagnostics and drug development 4. implementation research The questions have been prioritised through a process of: 1. identifying the areas in which our GHRU has had the most impact 2. participating in WHO and disease-group identification of research gaps in these areas 3. consulting with stakeholders including patients, communities, implementers and policy makers. Our research will contribute evidence important to disease treatment and prevention strategies and continue to enhance research capacity to ensure sustainability. CDT-Africa, Addis Ababa University University of Rwanda Armauer Hansen Research Institute OSSREA, Ethiopia University of Khartoum University of Newcastle Institute of Development Studies Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex 670986 1310320 1407376 1458040 2152937 GB-COH-RC000672-GI-ACE-2-8 University of Sussex The project builds on GI ACE research published in the 2022 report ‘Merchants of Integrity: Commodity Trading and Corruption Research for a World in Transition’. The 2022 report showed how the commodity trading sector is being transformed by the climate transition, highlighting two key areas of corruption risk: the sourcing of raw materials for green technologies and voluntary markets for carbon offsets. While this earlier research provided a high-level overview of knowledge gaps, this project targets these gaps through in-depth analysis in one key area: the complexities of corruption risks across voluntary carbon markets. The project will generate actionable evidence to inform more effective anti-corruption initiatives across voluntary markets for carbon offsets. The project will create new evidence on corruption risks, specifically those linked to verification and certification processes, to inform more effective interventions and controls across voluntary carbon markets. Royal United Services Institute Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office University of Sussex GI ACE, Centre for the Study of Corruption Liz Dávid-Barrett Director gi-ace@sussex.ac.uk Freeman Building, University of Sussex, Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9QE, UK 77250.00 52827.88 63158.81 19386.31 43772.5 25000 57250.00 52827.88 GB-COH-RC000672-GI-ACE-2-4 University of Sussex This project will address corruption in crisis responses in the Malawian health system. The COVID-19 pandemic created challenges to health systems around the world of a magnitude not seen in recent history. It revealed that the burden corruption imposes on health systems is exacerbated during moments of crisis. We will undertake a holistic mapping of the types of corruption that arise or become exacerbated during crises, aimed at gaining a thorough understanding of the drivers and enablers of the types of corruption that gravely hamper the health system’s emergency response. We will adopt cutting edge, behavioural science-based and technology-informed approaches and also engage key Government of Malawi practitioners in the project design and implementation. This will provide the basis upon which robust and effective anti-corruption interventions in support of emergency responses can be developed. Basel Institute on Governance Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office University of Sussex Liz Dávid-Barrett Director gi-ace@sussex.ac.uk Centre for the Study of Corruption, Freeman Building, University of Sussex, Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9QE, UK 77250 52827.88 67430.31 22476.81 44953.5 20000 57250 52827.88 GB-COH-RC000672-GI-ACE-2-7 University of Sussex This project will address gaps in how large-scale data leaks can be used in the anti-corruption sphere, and in particular academic investigations. We will coordinate new investigations and conduct new analysis of the largest leak of financial information from Africa – the Congo Hold-Up. This leak contains over 3.5 million documents from BGFIBank in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), comprising bank statements, emails, contracts, bills, corporate records, and the details of millions of banking transactions. Our approach is to build collaborations between academics, journalists, and civil society organizations to jointly analyze financial records, identify previously unknown practices and patterns behind corruption in global trade, and ultimately design and disseminate solutions for policy and programming. Anti-Corruption Data Collective Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office Government University of Sussex Paul Heywood Director gi-ace@sussex.ac.uk http://www.giace.org/ Centre for the Study of Corruption, Freeman Building, University of Sussex, Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9QE, UK 77250 52827.88 62540.31 20846.81 41693.5 20000 57250 52827.88 GB-COH-RC000672-GI-ACE-2-6 University of Sussex The project will generate high-quality, generalisable quantitative evidence on how political connections in public procurement lead to corruption, especially in situations of crisis and emergencies. It also strives to test the conditions under which conflict-of-interest regulations are effective in curbing corruption. First, it will gather high-quality novel evidence on the corrupting effect of political connections in public procurement, especially in crisis situations. Second, the project will help anti-corruption actors turn new insights into anti-corruption action. Third, we seek to identify specific conflict-of-interest rules and institutions which can effectively limit the impact of political influence in public procurement to support better policies. Specifically, we will first combine public procurement data with data on ownership and financial interests from office-holders’ interest disclosures to map the scope and structure of political connections in public procurement in selected countries. We then track the impacts of political connections on public procurement outcomes, particularly in crisis situations. We will also investigate under which conditions a specific anti-corruption tool, or conflict-of-interest regulations, are effective in mitigating the corrupting impact of connections. Finally, we aim to turn the project’s research results – large-scale administrative datasets, validated corruption risk indicators, and actionable, causal findings – into anti-corruption action. To this end, we will team up and collaborate with stakeholders, such as NGOs, journalists and international organisations to facilitate anti-corruption campaigns, advocacy and policy reform. Government Transparency Institute Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office University of Sussex Paul Heywood Director gi-ace@sussex.ac.uk Centre for the Study of Corruption, Freeman Building, University of Sussex, Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9QE, UK 77250 52827.88 67373.31 22457.81 44915.5 20000 57250 52827.88 GB-COH-RC000672-GI-ACE-2-3 University of Sussex Real estate is a significant asset class and a primary vehicle for money laundering. While knowledge products and policy options emerged in London, Vancouver, or the United States’s major cities, there is little data, knowledge, and locally anchored policy solutions for the municipalities in the Global South. This project looks at the ecology of the sector as it exists in large touristic cities in East Africa, Indo-Pacific, and South America and focuses on one of the critical actors in the system: real estate agents. We will evaluate a) how the environment in which real estate agents operate enables or inhibits integrity and b) how policy interventions could make a difference and positively rewire these incentive systems. This project aims to investigate how six tourism-focused cities/regions from Brazil (São Paulo City and Santa Catarina state’s northern coast), Kenya (Nairobi and Mombasa), and Indonesia (Jakarta and Bali province) address illicit finance in the real estate market. From the real estate agents’ professional perspective, we want to analyse the challenges they face, the conditions contributing to successes and failures in this industry, as well as practices, laws, and policies that could make a difference in decoupling real estate from illicit finance. Universitá della Svizzera Italiana Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office University of Sussex Liz Dávid-Barrett Director gi-ace@sussex.ac.uk Centre for the Study of Corruption, Freeman Building, University of Sussex, Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9QE, UK 77250 52827.88 66733.56 22244.56 44489 20000 57250 52827.88 GB-COH-RC000672-GI-ACE-2-2 University of Sussex The research proposal aims to build upon the Center for the Study of Democracy’s considerable practical anti-corruption experience in EU candidate countries, the Western Balkans, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. It zooms in and deciphers how to most effectively develop evidence-based policies, institutions, tools and instruments to tackle state capture and strategic corruption. The project will map the evidence of the elements of the state capture toolbox that local and foreign (Russian) oligarchic networks and enablers have deployed for exercising corruptive influence in these countries. The research and policy action will focus on the most powerful weapon and driver of strategic corruption and state capture: illicit financial flows (IFFs). This exercise will outline a clear, practical pathway for curbing strategic corruption and countering state capture risks in ODA-eligible countries through measuring and monitoring IFFs and providing relevant public institutions with the necessary anti-corruption instruments and know-how. Center for the Study of Democracy Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office University of Sussex Liz Dávid-Barrett Director gi-ace@sussex.ac.uk https://giace.org Centre for the Study of Corruption, Freeman Building, University of Sussex, Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9QE, UK 77250 52827.88 50941 16980.56 33961 57250 20000 52827.88 GB-COH-RC000672-GI-ACE-2-1 University of Sussex The project undertakes the first-ever large-scale study of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project’s (OCCRP) Aleph database to identify trends in how professional service providers enable cross-border corruption. Containing more than 3.8 billion entries and 50 terabytes of data – including the entirety of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)’s offshore leaks data dumps – Aleph is an investigative data platform that helps journalists follow the money. It is one of the world’s largest troves of documents on corruption including financial records, ownership documents, court filings, and correspondence. However, comparative study of this large dataset which allows us “to see the wood from the trees” has never before been attempted. By combining conceptual models of enablers and building on a pre-existing dataset produced under GI ACE phase 1, the project allows us to glean original and robust findings from this treasure trove of data. We will ask questions about how the enabling of corruption takes place: under what conditions and by which mechanisms it is occurring, where enabler networks are distributed and where are the key hubs, who constitute the enablers, and when are the key moments of enabling. The findings will inform policymaking, regulatory and enforcement activity by identifying areas of concentration and vulnerability across the enabling landscape. University of Exeter (Language: English)Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office University of Sussex Liz Dávid-Barrett Director gi-ace@sussex.ac.uk Centre for the Study of Corruption, Freeman Building, University of Sussex, Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9QE, UK 77250 52827.88 67204.56 22401.56 44803 77250.00 52827.88 GB-COH-RC000672-GI-ACE-2-5 University of Sussex The project will examine and deepen the understanding of crises/emergencies, and the responses by the state and other stakeholders (such as the non-governmental organizations, private sector) to such crises, can create opportunities for corruption in Uganda. The project aims to analyse corruption experiences and responses during four previous emergencies in Uganda, seeking to understand the forms, patterns and pathways of corruption. The project also seeks to develop strategies for preventing corruption when responding to crises or emergencies to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable sectors and population groups, mainly women, children, people with disabilities and marginalized ethnic communities in future crises. Kabale University Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office University of Sussex GI ACE, Centre for the Study of Corruption Paul Heywood Director gi-ace@sussex.ac.uk https://ace.globalintegrity.org/ Centre for the Study of Corruption, Freeman Building, University of Sussex, Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9QE, UK 75855.21 52827.88 66049.56 22016.56 18605.21 57250 52827.88 GB-COH-RC000672-GI-ACE-2-9 University of Sussex This project aims to deepen understanding of state capture by focusing on the previously overlooked role of public opinion in mitigating state capture and democratic backsliding. This study will investigate public attitudes towards state capture and evaluate the impact of communication campaigns that aim to foster civic engagement and to mobilise citizens, for example, to support anti-state capture interventions and vote for anti-state capture candidates in elections. The research will also explore potential risks of communications campaigns in this area, such as unintentionally reinforcing feelings of resignation or fostering populist sentiment and propose strategies to mitigate these challenges. University of Bristol 130000 69998.72 130000 45000 GB-COH-RC000672-NIHR156517 University of Sussex This project aims to establish an urgently needed evidence base on racism and mental health in Brazil, and co-design effective, context-bespoke and culturally acceptable interventions to address mental health needs in underserved Black Brazilian communities. Objectives: to produce intersectional knowledge on racism and mental health; to conduct research with Black Brazilians; to co-develop community mental health interventions and training packages; to influence mental health policy in Brazil and the wider region; and to build sustainable research capacity. University of Sussex The research and impact activities are taking place in Brazil and the wider region. This research involves health professionals in co-designing health services for equitable health provisions. 19969 GB-COH-RC000672-NIHR156442 University of Sussex Ear disease and hearing loss are common and under-recognised disorders, with 80% of the 1.6 billion people with hearing loss living in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Hearing loss affects individuals, society, and the economy, through effects on health, education, employment, and community. Recent advances in developing a low-cost high-performance hearing aid could help many, but will fail to support two of the most disadvantaged groups: those with persistent or recurrent ear discharge due to a hole in the ear drum (a disorder called chronic suppurative otitis media, CSOM) and those who are born deaf. CSOM affects predominantly those in LMICs, and it is thought that 250 million people are affected. In CSOM, a hole in the ear drum leads not only to hearing loss, but also to intermittent or continuous discharge of pus that is stigmatising and precludes use of a conventional hearing aid. For those born deaf, hearing aids cannot help as the loss is too severe. In many LMIC communities, these children are erroneously assumed to lack intelligence, so denied access to education or means of communication. Our team has pioneered and undertaken feasibility studies for three novel solutions that enable community-led self-care for ear and hearing disorders in LMICs: 1. Iodine antiseptic washout for active ear discharge in children and adults with CSOM. Iodine has the potential to treat infection, is widely available in LMICs, and is not toxic to the ear. 2. Low-cost bone-conduction aids for hearing loss in children and adults with CSOM. Bone conduction sends sound through vibration of the skull and so circumvents the diseased ear drum. 3. Web and app-based digital sign-language dictionaries to connect deaf children, their parents and communities, and empower the deaf community. This software has been developed and optimised over the past 8 years for Pakistani sign language by project partner Deaf Reach, and could be adapted to sign languages in other countries. Almost all existing research partnerships in ear and hearing care are based in high-income countries, despite the large burden of disease in LMICs. This will be a four-year project from September 2024 to August 2028, to develop an international team to instigate and support these and other future trials in the field of ear and hearing care in LMICs, partnering with local clinical teams and universities. We will develop capacity in research, in ear and hearing care in three low-income countries: Zambia, Cambodia and Malawi. Our project is focused on developing community-based solutions, so it has and will continue to include community members in developing and steering the project. Our solutions, we hope will enable people to stop their ear discharge and/or recover functional hearing, leading to improvements in self-confidence, socialisation, education and employability, with advantages to community and society as well as individuals. The project has 4 objectives: 1. To evaluate the lived experience of individuals living with chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM) and children who are deaf, and the attitudes knowledge and beliefs of their families, teachers and community, to ensure current and future interventions are sensitive to their needs. 2. To evaluate the effectiveness and uptake of interventions for community-based ear and hearing care: topical iodine for ear discharge in people with CSOM, low-cost bone conduction headsets for people with CSOM, and digital sign-language dictionaries for empowering deaf culture. 3. To train four PhD researchers in our partner countries (Malawi, Cambodia, Zambia) to become the academic leaders of the future in this field. 4. To develop a global academic team that will lead future research in ear and hearing, focused on real world change, through impact on healthcare policy and practice. University of Puthisastra Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust Zambart Deaf Kidz International 635031.55 782475.78 508561.73 847732.29