Vincent Okungu wins the 2012 EV4GH Competition

Vincent Okungu, a health economist working at the KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme, has  won the 2012 Emerging Voices for Global Health (EV4GH) competition.  The EV4GH is a “Getting-the-South-Heard” initiative that aims to identify talented health systems researchers from developing countries (South) and help  them develop research skills as well as explore their research ideas through linkages with the ‘North’ (developed countries).

The  global initiative, which is co-sponsored by the Institute of Tropical Medicine (Belgium) and the World Health Organization,began in 2010 with a global call on young researchers working in developing countries to forward essays on feasible ways to achieve universal health coverage. Vincent's essay on universal health coverage emerged as the best from over 350 submissions during this call.

This year, Vincent's work on health financing for the informal sector (the subject of his PhD thesis) once again emerged as the best to win him the 2012 EV4GH.

On winning the award, Vincent said, " The 2012 competition was very stiff as it was narrowed down to 10 applicants with the most innovative and promising research topics on health systems research and universal coverage."  “I was very delighted to have made it to the top… it was and still is a source of motivation,” he added. 

For the 2012 win, Vincent will benefit from a three-week intensive coaching on health systems research, global health governance, universal health coverage and writing skills at the Peking University (China). He will also have a chance to attend the 2^nd Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Beijing (China), which begins in November 2012.