Background: African governments and institutions are increasingly leading innovation on evidence-informed policy-making (EIPM). However, despite existing activities and established institutions, there is no overall knowledge base on the learning and evaluation of the EIPM efforts in Africa. In short, we don’t know the size and the nature of the existing evidence on what works for EIPM in Africa.

Objectives: systematically, to collect and organize the existing evidence-base on EIPM in Africa.

Methods: this presentation will summarize the results of the first evidence map collecting and organizing the continent’s knowledge base on EIPM. Following systematic review principles, the evidence map includes both scientific and grey literature assessing African EIPM efforts. It will be visualized using an interactive evidence mapping software allowing users to tailor-make the evidence-base according to their specifics needs.

Results: the evidence map will indicate the size of available evidence in Africa on strategies to support the use of evidence by decision-makers. It will show gaps in the evidence-base, i.e. areas where evidence is absent, as well as clusters of evidence, i.e. where sufficient evidence is present to guide synthesis and an assessment of intervention effectiveness. In addition, the evidence map will indicate patterns in the evidence-base, such as geographical and sectoral spread of the evidence.

Conclusions: as a hub of all the available evidence on EIPM in Africa, it presents an opportunity for cross-learning and dialogue between African EIPM advocates. It also serves as an anchor and overview of which EIPM strategies have been tested and to what effect on the continent.

Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: policy decision-makers were involved in the conceptualization and design of the evidence map.