The Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health (MLI) launched its knowledge management initiative this week at the Ministry of Health and Population’s (MoHP) in Nepal. The Digital Library database, which took two years to develop, will improve information sharing and support evidence-informed decision-making within the MoHP by giving policymakers access to a wide range of previously uncatalogued resources. MLI has worked closely with the Ministry to catalogue and prioritize its paper resources, digitize them and identify the best solutions to making the resources accessible to staff. The team consulted with other groups in Nepal, including, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency in Nigeria.

With the help of MLI, the MoHP identified the locally adaptable software Digital Library as the platform for its database and determined the types of literature that were most valuable to policymakers. The completed database includes over 550 full-text documents, as well as digitized versions of the nearly 3,000 books currently housed at the MoHP library. The MoHP librarians have been trained to maintain and add future documents to this database.

Click here to access the Digital Library through the Ministry’s website.  

MLI is a four-year program that seeks to strengthen the leadership capacity of ministries of health in Ethiopia, Mali, Nepal, Senegal, and Sierra Leone to advance policy in three interrelated areas: health financing for equity, donor harmonization in health, and reproductive health. It is a collaborative effort between the Results for Development Institute, the Aspen Institute’s Global Health and Development, and the Council of Women World Leaders.