DLSPH Centre to evaluate and improve global health initiatives
February 10/2026
Global Affairs Canada awarded the Centre for Global Health $3.5 million to evaluate and improve global health initiatives.
(Photo: Canva)
By Ishani Nath
The Centre for Global Health is located at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH), but its efforts to improve global health and health systems are felt around the world. And with the recently announced $3.5 million in funding from Global Affairs Canada, the Centre for Global Health’s impact will be even greater.
“This is an opportunity to highlight how Canada’s investment is helping to strengthen health systems and nutrition and sexual and reproductive health programming globally,” says DLSPH Associate Professor of Global Health Erica Di Ruggiero, Director of the Centre for Global Health.
“The goal of the project is to evaluate and learn from partnered investments in health systems, nutrition and sexual and reproductive health rights funded by Global Affairs Canada in different regions around the world,” explains Di Ruggiero.
The grant from Global Affairs Canada will fund the Centre’s “Co-designing Global Health Evaluations” initiative. The Centre for Global Health’s aim is to identify and share key takeaway messages and lessons learned from projects and programs in different regions. By leveraging diverse data sources such as primary data collection and intervention testing, secondary analyses of health survey data and policy analyses, this initiative will seek to answer questions like: What types of program and policy interventions work, for whom, and in which contexts? What can we learn from these projects to strengthen equitable health systems? What does the data reveal about how best to improve sexual and reproductive health rights?
DLSPH Associate Professor Erica Di Ruggiero
The goal is that the Co-designing Global Health Evaluations initiative will lead to significant health improvements for communities around the world.
“Through the conduct of these evaluations, we aim to provide important insights back to those who are delivering these programs on the ground in many different countries, and serve the needs of marginalized populations,” says Di Ruggiero.
The Centre for Global Health will be collaborating with colleagues at Dalhousie University, the University of Calgary, and the University of Manitoba on this initiative, as well as international organizations and multilateral networks. Importantly, researchers will also be working in close partnership with local organizations and leaders, allowing the Centre to put their priorities of equity and reciprocal learning into practice.
“The problems we are facing know no borders,” says Di Ruggiero. “There’s much we can learn from all places.”
While this initiative aims to have many collaborators and a global impact, Di Ruggiero emphasizes that receiving this investment at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health is particularly meaningful.
“We are living in an era of polycrisis, with intersecting and overlapping crises ranging from climate change to the lasting effects of COVID-19, which have impacted health systems and food insecurity globally. Now more than ever, we need focused centres of global health working on real-world problems and strengthening the evidence base in an era of growing misinformation and frankly, anti-evidence,” says Di Ruggiero. “It’s a real recognition of the expertise we have here to have the leading school of public health in Canada and its Centre for Global Health receive an opportunity to generate this kind of evidence base.”