Research

Questions that Cultivate Change

At Chembe, research is a way of staying curious. It’s how we make sense of the systems we work in, the people we learn from, and the patterns that emerge across different contexts. We see qualitative research not just as a tool for understanding the world, but as a way to shape it — with care, integrity, and imagination.

 

This section brings together our academic writing, developed through close collaboration with communities, colleagues, and partners. We hope it offers useful insights for those working to strengthen health and social systems, and sparks new conversations about what is possible.

Peer-review & feature articles

Across our projects, we have collaborated with our clients, colleagues, and friends to conduct qualitative research studies and disseminate the findings such that the global health community can be uplifted by the possibility that resides within the innovation process, the people engaged in it, and the solutions that are created. In the section below, you will find our recent peer-review and feature articles.

Podcasts as a tool to disrupt knowledge hierarchies and silos to decolonize global health (2024)

From idea to systems solution: enhancing access to primary care in Malawi (2023)

Institutionalizing Social Innovation in Health Systems: Identifying Positive Practices in Malawi (2024)

Read here
Read here
WATCH THE VIDEO
Read here
WATCH THE VIDEO

Building the social innovation for health ecosystem in Latin America: experiences and learning from SIHI-LAC (2022)

A social innovation model for equitable access to quality health services for rural populations: a case from Sumapaz, a rural district of Bogota, Colombia (2022)

The Application of Social Innovation in Healthcare: A Scoping Review (2021)

Read here
Read here
WATCH THE VIDEO
Read here
WATCH PART 1
WATCH PART 2

Crowdsourcing to identify Social Innovation Initiatives in Health in Low-and Middle-income Countries (2020)

Covid-19: an opportunity for social innovation? (2020)

Universities as Catalysts of Social Innovation in Health Systems in Low-and Middle-income Countries: A Multi-country Case Study (2020)

Read here
Read here
Read here

Social innovation in health: strengthening Community Systems for Universal Health Coverage in rural areas (2023)

Read here
WATCH THE VIDEO

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Dr Lindi van Niekerk is a South African medical doctor with expertise in primary care, health systems, and social innovation. In her global health work, Lindi draws on her technical knowledge as a clinician, her qualitative research experience gained in several low-and middle-income countries, her strategic project implementation capacity, and her creative ability as a filmmaker and storyteller.

 

Since 2008, Lindi has been on a journey to catalyze acceptance and create opportunities for social innovation within health systems. While working as a medical doctor, she established the first public hospital-based end of life care project, and as Inclusive Health Innovation Lead at the University of Cape Town’s Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, she established the first innovation lab in the main public tertiary hospital in Cape Town (Groote Schuur Hospital). Lindi co-founded the Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI) in partnership with the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), hosted at the World Health Organization. As part of this initiative, she led a multi-partner research study on social innovation models across 17 countries and provided strategic guidance to the establishment of four social innovation research hubs at universities in Malawi, Uganda, the Philippines, and Colombia. In her own doctoral research, she has focused on gaining a deeper understanding of the factors involved in institutionalizing social innovations as part of the health system in Malawi.

 

Since establishing Chembe Collaborative in 2016, she has worked as an independent consultant with clients ranging from universities, multilateral agencies, private companies, and non-governmental organizations. Lindi has a deep sensitivity to the cultural realities of low-and middle-income countries and the health system challenges faced by both people seeking care and providers/policymakers delivering care in these settings.

 

Lindi holds a PhD in Global Health and an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an MBChB from the University of Pretoria. 

Alasdair is a commercial editor, animator and film director. While working with Chembe, he has produced motion graphics for clients such as TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and Kamuzu University of Health Sciences in Malawi.

 

Recently, Alasdair completed his second feature film edit – a period love story set in Zanzibar in Swahili. His first feature film edit for “Saloum”, which premiered in the Midnight Madness Category of the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021.

 

When he isn’t editing foreign language films, he loves working in the documentary field. Having filmed ice swimming world records in Siberia and Alaska, Environmental Marine conservation documentaries all over South and East Africa and edited many humanitarian and wildlife programmes across Africa and Asia. Alasdair is passionate about telling people’s stories.

 

With his love of film and culture, Alasdair was a founding member of the Cape Town leg of the International Short Film Festival in 2010 and was its festival director for 6 years before retiring the festival in 2020. The festival was designed as a network building event through its many host cities on every continent.

Claudi likes understanding and combining seemingly opposite fields, approaches and environments. For her, creativity and analytics are not opposites, but one actually enhances one another. This has driven her to pursue an education in graphic design at Central Saint Martins in London, followed by a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University in Cape Town as well as, holding her Masters in Development Economics from the University of Amsterdam.


As a child of Africa, at the heart of her identity is a passion for social change, which has led her to work on projects relating to financial inclusion, labor fairness and reducing patient waiting times in a pediatric hospital in South Africa. In contrast, Claudi has also worked in more commercial settings, from start-ups to technology consulting for big corporations.


Claudi uses her unique background to help her find commonality and patterns when things seem unconnected. She believes that stronger ideas are formed when we combine disciplines, borrow knowledge from one area and customize it to suit the problem at hand.

Dr Lindi van Niekerk is a South African medical doctor with expertise in primary care, health systems, and social innovation. In her global health work, Lindi draws on her technical knowledge as a clinician, her qualitative research experience gained in several low-and middle-income countries, her strategic project implementation capacity, and her creative ability as a filmmaker and storyteller.

 

Since 2008, Lindi has been on a journey to catalyze acceptance and create opportunities for social innovation within health systems. While working as a medical doctor, she established the first public hospital-based end of life care project, and as Inclusive Health Innovation Lead at the University of Cape Town’s Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, she established the first innovation lab in the main public tertiary hospital in Cape Town (Groote Schuur Hospital). Lindi co-founded the Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI) in partnership with the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), hosted at the World Health Organization. As part of this initiative, she led a multi-partner research study on social innovation models across 17 countries and provided strategic guidance to the establishment of four social innovation research hubs at universities in Malawi, Uganda, the Philippines, and Colombia. In her own doctoral research, she has focused on gaining a deeper understanding of the factors involved in institutionalizing social innovations as part of the health system in Malawi.

Since establishing Chembe Collaborative in 2016, she has worked as an independent consultant with clients ranging from universities, multilateral agencies, private companies, and non-governmental organizations. Lindi has a deep sensitivity to the cultural realities of low-and middle-income countries and the health system challenges faced by both people seeking care and providers/policymakers delivering care in these settings.

 Lindi holds a PhD in Global Health and an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an MBChB from the University of Pretoria.