Table 3 Use of South-South exchange visits to strengthen shared understanding in REACHOUT

As part of strengthening cross-contextual understanding, in the REACHOUT QRN face-to-face meetings were organized to rotate through all the participating network sites over the lifetime of the project. This meant, in parallel with joint research approach and tool development, analysis, and capacity building, all team members were able to make field visits to project sites in other countries. Learning about the health system through direct observation and conversation with providers and users made deep impressions and led to more productive analysis discussions. We also involved national and district policymakers working with the project on field visits to other countries, sharing ideas and experiences for both relationship deepening and joint learning, explicit goals of the project.