Background Global health research partnerships have been scrutinised for how they operate and criticised for perpetuating inequities. Guidance to inform fair partnership practice has proliferated and the movement to decolonise global health has added momentum for change. In light of this evolving context, we sought in this study to document contemporary experiences of partnership from the perspective of stakeholders in four sub-Saharan African research institutions. Methods We conducted qualitative interviews with 20 stakeholders at research institutions in four countries in anglophone eastern and southern Africa. Interview questions were informed by published guidance on equitable research partnerships. Data was analysed through an iterative process of inductive and deductive coding, supported by NVivo software. Results Early-career, mid-career and senior researchers and research administrators from four sub-Saharan African research institutions described wide-ranging experiences of partnership with high-income country collaborators. Existing guidelines for partnership provided good coverage of issues that participants described as being the key determinants of a healthy partnership, including mutual respect, role clarity and early involvement of all partners. However, there was almost no mention of guidelines being used to inform partnership practice. Participants considered the key benefits of partnership to be capacity strengthening and access to research funding. Meanwhile, participants continued to experience a range of well-documented inequities, including exclusion from agenda setting, study design, data analysis and authorship; and relationships that were exploitative and dominated by high-income country partners’ interests. Participants also reported emerging issues where their institution had been the prime recipient of funds. These included high-income country partners being unwilling to accept a subordinate role and failing to comply with reporting requirements. Conclusions Insights from stakeholders in four sub-Saharan African research institutions suggest that contemporary global health research partnerships generate considerable benefits but continue to exhibit longstanding inequities and reveal emerging tensions. Our findings suggest that long-term support targeted towards institutions and national research systems remains essential to fulfil the potential of research led from sub-Saharan Africa. High-income country stakeholders need to find new roles in partnerships and stakeholders from sub-Saharan Africa must continue to tackle challenges presented by the resource-constrained contexts in which they commonly operate.

Experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization have well-established associations with poor mental health. There is also burgeoning evidence regarding the association between IPV perpetration and mental health in a small number of countries. However, there is a paucity of data about the gendered differences for these IPV experiences within sub-Saharan African. This study examines the association between IPV victimization, perpetration, and mental health outcomes for male and female adolescents and young adults in Uganda. Data on IPV perpetration were available for a nationally representative sample of 1,373 males and 2,022 females in Uganda. Observations were weighted to be representative of 13- to 24-year-olds in Uganda. Study procedures used multivariate logistic regression models to examine associations between ever-perpetration of IPV and four self-reported mental health variables: severe sadness, feelings of worthlessness, suicide ideation, and alcohol abuse. Models controlled for age, marital status, schooling, and past exposure to violence. Models were sex-disaggregated to examine sex-specific associations. Standard errors were adjusted for sampling stratification and clustering. Data analysis showed that males were more than twice as likely as females to perpetrate IPV (14% vs. 6%, respectively; p < .001), while odds of perpetration for both sexes were higher for those ever experiencing IPV (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 12.12 for males; aOR=4.73 for females). Male perpetrators had 2.93 greater odds of experiencing suicidal ideation (95% confidence interval [CI]: [1.78, 4.82], p < .001) and increased drinking behaviors (2.21, 95% CI: [1.39, 3.50], p < .001) when compared with non-perpetrating males. In addition, female perpetrators had 2.59 times greater odds of suicidal ideation (95% CI: [1.34,4.99], p < .01), as compared with non-perpetrating females. Our findings among youth and adolescents demonstrated associated but different experiences for males and females. Findings indicate the importance of understanding the relationship between IPV victimization and perpetration, and addressing these correlates with a gender-sensitive perspective to inform policy and programming.

Community-based action research is increasingly gaining traction in development work, partly because of its benefits in contextualizing societal problems and “handing over the stick” to the communities; that is, researchers listen, question, and learn as the experts (the community members) identify their problems and define the change they desire. This research approach, therefore, empowers communities and is a shift from traditional research where the researcher presupposes that deductions about a phenomenon are to be made outside the natural environment. This research paper documents the use of participatory learning and action approaches in designing, implementing, and monitoring interventions to prevent violence against children in post-conflict northern Uganda, a region that suffered through the Lord’s Resistance insurgency from 1987 to 2006.

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