By Mahzouba Maya Faal
Officials of the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science, and Technology (MoHERST) participated in a three-day Ethic and Regulatory Capacity (ERC) Project Consultative forum from the 4th to the 6th of October 2022. The Workshop was organized by the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia, at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (MRC at (LSHTM).
The ERC Project, initiated by MRC at LSHTM and funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), aims to build robust ethics and regulatory governing framework to enhance the ethics and regulatory capacity of The Gambia, establish institutional research ethic committees, and ensuring optimum protection of research participants.
The purpose of the workshop is to identify the ethical review needs of the beneficiary institutions and develop solutions that will allow these institutions to form operational ethics committees with adequate knowledge, skills, and systems required by an ethics committee.
Mr James Gomez, Director of Research at MoHERST, informed participants of the recently validated National Research Policy. He explained that in the new National Research Policy, pronouncements are made about the setting up of a National Research Ethics Committee in The Gambia, whiles encouraging the existence of international or local ethic committees.
Mr. James Gomez went on to highlight that research should lead to development. Thus, he urged tertiary and higher education institutions in The Gambia to be innovative and ensure research outputs go beyond the classrooms or laboratories. Furthermore, Mr. Gomez called on all stakeholders to work together in identifying needed capacities in research development in line with the objectives of the consultative workshop.
The representative from the Ministry of Health underscored the significance of creating systems that regulate research in the country, adding that the workshop is timely and appropriate.
Davis Nwakanma, Chief Operations Officer (MRC at LSHTM) said health research is important to the survival of human beings. Consequently, it is important to have a National Regulatory framework that guides research ethics in the country.
He thanked the government of The Gambia for its continued support, research partners for their active participation, as well as participants for their participation.
Elizabeth Batchilly, the Head of Research Support and Governance Services (MRC at LSHTM) and Principal Investigator PI of the ERC Study, gave an overview of the ERC project. She introduced the project’s four (4) partners, including MRCGH, Medicines Control Agency (MCA), EthiXPERT, and Pharmalys.
The project began on the 1st of July 2021 and will end on June 30th, 2023. The outcome of the consultative workshop will be the development of a National Ethics and Research Regulatory Framework that will be used as a bench mark for the conduct of research in The Gambia.
