2022: A year that catalysed change

Throughout 2022, our partnerships have been instrumental in breaking down barriers and empowering individuals and communities to work together towards a common goal. Through these efforts to catalyse change, our programmes can deliver more.

We see this in the number of people reached: 50,600 people benefitted from NNHF programmes in 2022. The scope of these benefits is wide, for some it could mean an 18-hour reduction in the time they have to travel to receive care. Others may now be able to self-infuse at home. For thousands, it is a confirmed diagnosis of their bleeding disorder, meaning they can access the appropriate care for the first time.

And what is our role in this? We are the ones putting our partners at the forefront. As a catalyst for change we can inspire, we can introduce new ideas, and we can empower. But it is our partners who do. They are the ones leading their communities to address their most pressing needs in haemophilia care, whether this is establishing labs and clinics, reducing social stigma or influencing government policy.

That is why understanding our partners’ needs, the context in which they work, and how they can convert their plans into action and ultimately, impact, is key. The Grantee Perception Survey is one of the ways we can assess how we are doing in this area. Run by the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), the survey seeks feedback from our grantees and compares results across a dataset gathered from over 350 funders. We were humbled by the results, with our partners especially positive about our impact on their communities and organisations.

There are of course areas that our partners would like us to work on. With the travel restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, they want us to ensure that post-pandemic, we re-establish the close connections with them and communities they serve, whilst also ensuring we travel efficiently to minimise our environmental impact.

Our partners also want to achieve the right balance between demonstrating impact and the reporting mechanisms that this requires. By reviewing our impact framework and identifying which indicators really demonstrate positive change, we are working towards streamlining our monitoring and reporting process and with that reducing our partners’ workload.

Finally, catalysing change means expanding our partner network so that more actors can be mobilised to facilitate this change. In 2022, we welcomed four new countries into our project portfolio, and saw great strides in our partnerships with Fondation Pierre Fabre and Novo Nordisk Foundation through project activities in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Tanzania and Kenya. 2022 was also the year that Ramathibodi Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand became the first centre to receive equipment through our partnership with the International Society on Haemostasis and Thrombosis (ISTH). And finally, 2022 marked the 10th anniversary of the first NNHF sponsored labs enrolling in the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) International External Quality Assurance Scheme (IEQAS).

As we move into 2023, we will continue to focus on those who matter most: our beneficiaries. Whilst we expand our network, explore new partnerships and adapt to our revised impact framework, we will never lose sight of our vision, that people with haemophilia and allied disorders receive care and treatment, wherever they live.