Awardees

Climate change is reshaping malaria transmission patterns across Eastern Africa, increasing the risk of outbreaks and challenging existing control strategies. Current malaria early warning systems remain fragmented and reactive, often relying on limited climate indicators, with insufficient attention to gender, population vulnerability, and integration into routine health system decision-making.

RE-CLAIM-EWS will develop, validate and operationalise a gender-responsive, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven early warning system for climate-sensitive malaria across Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. Using a hybrid Type II implementation–effectiveness design, the project will assess both predictive performance and real-world adoption within national malaria programmes.

The project will integrate nearly three decades of malaria surveillance, climate, environmental and demographic data with new clinical, entomological and community-level data to develop an AI forecasting model capable of predicting malaria outbreak risks up to three months in advance, enabling timely preventive action.

Through a Hub-and-Spoke approach, Ethiopia will lead model development, calibration, prospective validation and implementation research, while Kenya and Uganda will support external validation, dashboard testing and regional adaptation. The project will also generate economic evidence through costing, cost-effectiveness analysis and investment modelling.

By training over 80 malaria professionals through a Training-of-Trainers approach, RE-CLAIM-EWS will strengthen regional capacity for climate-informed decision-making. The project will deliver an operational forecasting platform, policy-ready evidence and sustainable solutions to enhance malaria preparedness, reduce disease burden and build climate-resilient health systems across Eastern Africa.

Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of cholera, typhoid fever and other waterborne diseases across Eastern and Southern Africa, placing growing pressure on health systems and disproportionately affecting women, children, informal workers and rural communities. Despite these growing risks, many countries still lack integrated climate and health information systems that can predict outbreaks and support timely public health action.

This 24-month project brings together researchers, governments and public health partners from South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Kenya and Uganda to develop a regional climate-health early warning system. By combining ten years of climate, environmental, water quality and disease surveillance data with advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence, the project will identify where and when waterborne disease outbreaks are most likely to occur.

The project will also assess the preparedness of primary healthcare services to respond to climate-related outbreaks and identify communities at greatest risk. Working closely with policymakers and health practitioners, it will strengthen the use of climate information in public health planning and emergency preparedness.

Key outputs include predictive forecasting tools, an integrated climate-health data platform, regional vulnerability maps, policy briefs, capacity-building workshops and practical guidance to support climate-resilient health systems. By improving regional collaboration, data sharing and evidence-informed decision-making, the project will help countries move from reacting to outbreaks to preventing them, creating healthier and more resilient communities across Eastern and Southern Africa.

Climate change is harming health across Eastern and Southern Africa. Droughts, floods and heatwaves are driving surges in illnesses such as malaria, diarrhoea, breathing problems and malnutrition, disrupting health services, and pushing families deeper into financial hardship. Many of these costs remain hidden: money spent on treatment and transport, days of work lost, assets sold to pay medical bills, and the unpaid care work carried mainly by women. Because these losses are rarely measured, they are missing from national health budgets and adaptation plans.

This project, led by Kabarak University in partnership with the EED Research Institute, will measure the hidden health costs of climate change in Kenya and Malawi. Working in six climate-vulnerable sites — Turkana, Mombasa and Kisumu counties in Kenya, and Nsanje, Chikwawa and Balaka districts in Malawi — the team will survey 1,200 households, assess health facilities and district health systems, link weather records with routine health data, and hold interviews and group discussions with communities, health workers and decision-makers. Special attention will be paid to women, children, older people, persons with disabilities and families who depend on climate-sensitive livelihoods, who bear the greatest burden.

The project will estimate how much illness and cost can be attributed to climate hazards, and will develop a practical digital tool that predicts climate-related health risks and their financial costs, giving planners early warning of emerging threats. This evidence will help governments in both countries build fairer, better-funded and more climate-resilient health systems that protect the most vulnerable.

Climate change is increasing the spread and severity of climate-sensitive diseases in Ethiopia, such as malaria, diarrhoeal diseases and malnutrition. This places growing pressure on a health system with limited and uneven financing. Although Ethiopia has made progress in health and climate action, a critical evidence gap remains on how health financing can respond effectively to climate risks while promoting equity and protecting vulnerable populations, particularly women, rural communities and pastoralist groups.

This 18-month study examines how Ethiopia can better mobilise and allocate domestic and international resources to strengthen climate-resilient health systems in an equitable and gender-responsive way. Led by the Ethiopian Economics Association in partnership with the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, the research will analyse budget and health data alongside consultations with government officials and key stakeholders across five regions, including Oromia, Somali, Afar, Amhara and Addis Ababa.

The project will assess financing options for climate-related health action, including tracking climate-related spending, examining allocation strategies that prioritise climate-vulnerable communities, and strengthening services responsive to women and marginalised groups. Using economic modelling and a survey of policymaker preferences, the study will generate practical evidence to inform climate and health financing decisions.

Expected outputs include a fiscal space assessment, a cost-benefit framework to compare investment options, and a draft national financing framework to guide equitable investment in climate-resilient health systems. The main outcome is to support Ethiopia's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Health with evidence-based tools to strengthen resilience and reduce climate-related health disparities.

Climate change is increasingly recognised as a driver of health and social inequities, yet its specific impacts on gender-based violence (GBV) remain poorly understood. In refugee settlements such as Bidibidi in northern Uganda, climate-related shocks — floods, droughts and extreme weather — compound existing vulnerabilities. This leaves adolescent girls and young women at heightened risk of violence, exploitation, and disrupted access to health and protection services. Despite this urgent need, evidence on how climate stress drives GBV and whether services are prepared to respond remains limited.

This project addresses that gap by investigating how climate shocks intensify GBV risks and strain health and protection systems. Using surveys, interviews, focus groups and participatory workshops, the study documents the scale of the issue, affected populations' lived experiences, and service readiness. A rights-based, inclusive approach ensures the voices of adolescent girls, young men, persons with disabilities and displaced populations remain central.

Key outputs include peer-reviewed publications, policy briefs for government and humanitarian actors, technical reports, and accessible community materials such as infographics and translated summaries.

The anticipated outcomes are threefold. In the short term, greater awareness of climate–GBV linkages and identification of service gaps. In the medium term, integration of recommendations into district and national planning. In the long term, stronger, survivor-centred health and protection systems resilient to climate stress.

By linking climate adaptation, gender equality and health system resilience, this research generates rigorous, actionable evidence to inform inclusive, climate-responsive strategies across Uganda and Eastern and Southern Africa.

Tanzania's Southern Highlands, including Mbeya Region, are experiencing rising climate-related health risks such as heat stress and mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, dengue and chikungunya, as warming temperatures and changing rainfall alter disease patterns in areas once considered low risk. National climate and health strategies exist, but they rarely translate into practical, community-level information, and women and youth, who are often most affected, are seldom involved in generating or interpreting this evidence.

This project, led by Mbeya University of Science and Technology, will work with communities in Mbeya to co-produce local knowledge on climate and health risks through participatory digital mapping. At least 25 young people, at least 60% of them women, will be trained and mentored as Climate-Health Champions, building their skills in mapping, leadership and innovation. These champions will help create a pilot Digital Climate-Health Atlas showing local hazards, vulnerabilities and infrastructure gaps, and will develop and test small-scale, youth-led innovations to address the risks identified.

Findings will be shared with community members, local leaders and health and planning officials through accessible briefs, workshops and visual materials, encouraging dialogue on how this local evidence can support better-informed decisions.

Over twelve months, the project aims to show that participatory mapping and women-led youth innovation can produce reliable, locally relevant climate-health evidence, while strengthening the capacity of young women to lead climate action in their communities. This is a small-scale pilot focused on testing and learning, laying the groundwork for future, larger research and more inclusive climate-health systems in Tanzania.

Climate change and health are linked crises that threaten the Sustainable Development Goals and global health. Among the most urgent risks of the climate crisis to human health in Kenya is the geographic expansion of climate-sensitive vector-borne diseases. Climate variability and heavy flooding in western Kenya significantly drive the surge in mosquito-borne disease risk, including dengue fever, by expanding breeding habitats and accelerating vector reproduction.

Dengue fever is a re-emerging cause of non-malarial febrile illness. Co-infection with malaria complicates the diagnosis and treatment of febrile illness in endemic regions around the Lake Victoria basin. This is linked to historical malaria testing and treatment biases in the region, caused by the overlap in disease symptoms.

This project, supported by the ESA Hub and implemented by Moi University, will investigate dengue serotypes, their distribution, and community preparedness for the dual burden of malaria and arboviral disease in Bunyala Sub-County, Busia County. The study will target febrile patients seeking healthcare at public health facilities in Busia County, and will link participants to their communities for focus group discussions and geocoordinate mapping of participant locations.

The study has three major expected outcomes. First, infection burden: identifying the most dominant circulating dengue serotypes and the community infection burden across demographic groups. Second, public awareness: enhanced community sensitisation about the causes of febrile illness and improved rates of early health-seeking behaviour. Third, policy impact: improved integration of serodistribution data into regional climate and health action hubs, demonstrating the need for stronger local diagnostic and case management skills among healthcare workers.

Climate change has moved from a distant threat to an immediate determinant of health. Its consequences for land, air, ecosystems and infectious diseases are well documented, and the link between warming and the spread of diseases such as malaria is increasingly clear. Much less is understood about how a changing climate affects maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) in resource-poor settings, largely because climate and health data are seldom collected, linked or analysed together, and few frameworks exist for doing so.

Malawi illustrates this gap sharply. Floods from Cyclone Freddy in 2023 destroyed health infrastructure that women and children depend on. Recurrent drought has cut food supply, driving undernutrition among pregnant women and their babies. Heatwaves have eroded health-worker performance and spoiled medicines as storage temperatures rose beyond the recommended 25–30 °C. Shifting seasons have also widened the range of malaria, adding to the burden carried by mothers and children.

This project addresses the missing evidence. Working in Balaka district, it will bring together climate data — temperature, particulate matter and precipitation — with long-term MNCH outcome data, and apply spatial-temporal modelling to trace how the two move in relation to each other. Alongside the analysis, the project will work with communities, and with government ministries, departments and agencies responsible for health and environment, to co-create adaptation responses suited to local conditions and strengthen the capacity of programme implementers and researchers to carry this work forward.

The aim is a credible evidence base for the climate-health nexus in Malawi, one that informs policy, sharpens advocacy and communication, and directs adaptation to where mothers and children are most exposed.

Climate change is intensifying mosquito-borne disease risks in Eastern and Southern Africa, revealing gaps in workforce and surveillance readiness. To address these gaps, a network of mosquito observatories (VectorGrid-Africa) was recently created to build in-country laboratory and field capacity across East and Southern Africa and collect long-term high-quality data on mosquitoes, disease and climate.

In this new partnership with Amref Health Africa, the project is building an additional layer of capabilities for countries to convert the VectorGrid-Africa data, together with information from national surveillance systems, into action by developing a Rapid Vector Response (RVR) workforce model in three of the partner countries: Tanzania, Mozambique and Kenya. The team is partnering with ministries of health and other in-country agencies to create competency-based training, standard operating procedures, and pre-positioned kits for rapid mobilisation when needed.

The programme will train and certify field-ready responders, operationalise surge systems, and produce policy guidance for anticipatory preparedness across the region. It will also assess how existing training across environmental health, laboratory, surveillance, vector control and primary health care cadres can be strengthened to support climate-resilient response.

Together, these efforts will provide ministries and partners with a practical, scalable workforce package to strengthen anticipatory preparedness and response to climate-driven outbreaks across the region.