Sub-Saharan Africa

Task shifting has been suggested to meet the demand for initiating and managing
more patients on antiretroviral therapy. This paper will appraise current trends in task shifting related to HIV treatment programmes in order to evaluate evidence related to the effectiveness of this strategy in addressing human resource constraints and improving patient outcomes, challenges identified in practice and the acceptability
of this strategy to the health professions. [adapted from abstract]

As the fi rst report in the Series on faith-based health care, we review a broad body of published
work and introduce some empirical evidence on the role of faith-based health-care providers, with a focus on Christian
faith-based health providers in sub-Saharan Africa (on which the most detailed documentation has been gathered). [from abstract]

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This article outlines the process of identifying tools that, with modification, could assist in the evaluation of Community-Based Education programmes in participating Medical Education Partnership Initiative schools, funded by PEPFAR.

Nurses comprise the largest portion of the health care workforce in most countries; they interact closely with patients and communities, they work throughout the day and within all sectors of health care. Their breath of practice gives them a broad understanding of requirements of the health care system, of how factors in the environment affect the health outcomes of clients and communities. Nurses’ involvement in health policy development ensures that health services are: safe, effective, available and inexpensive. [from abstract]

This brief is a summary of the West Africa private health sector assessment conducted by the SHOPS project. The assessment looked at six countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Niger, and Togo. The brief presents the assessment methods, findings, and both regional and country-specific recommendations. The recommendations aim to strengthen family planning and HIV service delivery by leveraging the unique capabilities of the West Africa Health Organization as well as each country’s private health sector. [from resource]

Improving the capacity of local researchers in Africa is a recognised way to advance health and development. Numerous approaches to health research capacity strengthening (health RCS) exist, including training for individuals, improving research systems within institutions, and international collaborations among health research agencies. But how do we know if these approaches work and
which are the most effective

This review of the literature offers a commentary and appraisal of the current MNCH [maternal, newborn and child health] situation in South Sudan. It explores the barriers and challenges of promoting MNCH gains, and identifies priorities that will contribute to addressing the Millennium Development Goals and the emerging health priorities for the post-2015 development agenda. [from abstract]

This report includes the first two of these case studies for Imperial Health Sciences and Central Medical Supplies Public Corporation
(Sudan). PtD intends to continue developing case studies to offer the broader community examples of human capital management that they can adopt to improve supply chain execution. [from introduction]

Mobile and wireless technologies assist health projects in accurately assessing the needs of a target population, collecting and disseminating relevant information, and delivering cost effective health services. [from introduction]

Access to education was identified as a key international priority by UNESCO as far back as 1998 when it called for “equality of access”. A qualitative research design framed in phenomenology was used to conduct structured
interviews with academic leaders in optometry across SSA. Finance for tuition and student maintenance,
lack of knowledge of optometry and optometrists, high admission criteria, limited spaces at institutions, poor
mathematics and science results, gender inequalities and geographical location were cited as barriers to
optometric education. [adapted from abstract]

The aim of this study was to identify, summarise and synthesise available research addressing health care providers’ perceptions of and attitudes towards induced abortions in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. [from abstract]

Faith-inspired organizations (FIOs) and communities are important providers of healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa (as in other world regions). Quality can be high and the focus is often on serving the very poor and marginalized, but FIO work is rarely treated as a central part of national and global health strategies and systems.

The following case study offers a look at some of these basic ingredients and approaches that can help to achieve both scale and sustainability in the African context. We focus in particular on how closing persistent gaps increases the likelihood of mainstreaming mHealth initiatives into health systems. [from introduction]

African medical schools have historically turned to northern partners for technical assistance and resources to strengthen their education and research programmes. In 2010, this paradigm shifted when the United States Government brought forward unprecedented resources to support African medical schools. The grant, entitled the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) triggered a number of south-south collaborations between medical schools
in Africa. This paper examines the goals of these partnerships and their impact on medical education and health workforce planning. [from abstract]

Most African countries are facing a human resources for health (HRH) crisis, lacking the required workforce to deliver basic health care, including care for mothers and children. To address the HRH challenges, evidence-based deployment and training policies are required. However, the resources available to country-level policy makers to create such
policies are limited. To inform future HRH planning, a scoping review was conducted to identify the type, extent, and quality of evidence that exists on HRH policies for rural MNCH in Africa. [from abstract]

Both sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services and HIV programs in sub-Saharan Africa are typically delivered vertically, operating parallel to national health systems. The objective of this study was to map the evidence on national and international strategies for integration of SRH and HIV services in sub-Saharan Africa and to develop a research agenda for future health systems integration. [from abstract]

We explore whether social exclusion determines enrolment of older people in Senegal’s Plan Sesame and Ghana’s NHIS. Social exclusion affects older people’s uptake of social health protection (SHP) programs in both Senegal and Ghana. Reducing financial barriers is not enough to achieve universal coverage.Efforts to cover older people at risk of social exclusion should be increased. Sociocultural, political and economic dimensions should be considered while designing SHP schemes. [from abstract]

The focus of this study is to better understand how social workers and related professionals are
trained and educated—both formally and informally—to engage in social work practice, especially as it is related to child protection, in the West and Central Africa region. [from executive summary]

The Road map, which was developed with the appreciable contribution of critical stakeholders such as ministries of health, education, public services and finance as well as universities and training institutions regulators, professional bodies, civil society and nongovernmental organizations, defines strategic directions and priority interventions to be implemented in the period 2012–2025. [from introduction]

The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed a new strategy on people-centered health care that places a strong focus on the re-orienting the health system as a whole, including the importance of engaging community and patient groups. ASSIST principles of people-centeredness are complementary to the WHO strategy, particularly with respect to coordination and continuity of care, information, and the micro-level interactions between a client and the health care service delivery team that promote or hinder people-centeredness.

The importance of health policy and systems research and analysis (HPSR?+?A) has been increasingly recognised, but it is still unclear how most effectively to strengthen the capacity of the different organisations involved in this field. Universities are particularly crucial but the expansive literature on capacity development has little to offer the unique needs of HPSR?+?A activity within universities, and often overlooks the pivotal contribution of capacity assessments to capacity strengthening. [from abstract]

This is a review of the health financing situation in the Republic of Gabon. The book reviews the situation in the country under the lens of the principles of health financing: revenue mobilization for health, risk pooling, and purchasing services. [from abstract]

The last decade has witnessed massive growth in the African economy, accompanied by an unprecedented uptake of novel communications technologies across the five sub-regions. At the same time, the burden of various diseases – both communicable and non-communicable – is also escalating. Thus, the objective of this research was to analyze and highlight uncommon applications of novel technologies toward healthcare delivery in Africa. [from abstract]

During the past decade, donor funding for health interventions in Kenya and other African countries has risen sharply. Focused on high-profile diseases such as HIV/AIDS, these funds create islands of intervention in a sea of under-resourced public health services. This paper draws on ethnographic research conducted in HIV clinics and in a public hospital to examine how health workers experience and reflect upon the juxtaposition of ‘global’ medicine with ‘local’ medicine. We show that health workers face an uneven playing field.

Social participation in health systems has been a consistent element of post-independence health policies in east and Southern African (ESA) countries and central to primary health care (PHC). The Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) 2007 Regional Equity analysis highlighted that social participation and power are key for equitable health systems, and for reclaiming and using resources for health. [from introduction]

African community activists have long recognized the need to strengthen the voices of African advocates and civil
society working to improve health and wellbeing across the continent. With funding from the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), PATH helped former tuberculosis (TB) patients from five African countries to
build on the previous efforts of their colleagues to create a strong core organization—the Africa Coalition on
Tuberculosis (ACT!)—and then expand ACT!

The Ebola epidemic has highlighted the importance of bridging trust and building common goals between the health profession and the communities they serve. [from introduction]

Special and emergency hiring programs entail the use of processes and mechanisms that are outside of the primary, nationally institutionalized human resource frameworks. Specifically, we sought to assess whether these approaches avert some of the challenges that undercut optimal deployment, long-term retention, and the rational assignment of transfers. Do efforts outside of the “regular” system bypass the P&T challenges of the “normal” system? Why? [from introduction]

Recent analysis by the SHOPS project shows that the private health sector could help country governments sustain national HIV responses. SHOPS used national health accounts data to track how HIV funds flow through the health systems in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Malawi, and Namibia, and identified ways that donors and the government can better work with the private health sector. [from introduction]

The official report for the 9th International Conference on ICT for Development, Education & Training, which took place from May 28 to 30, 2014 in Kampala, Uganda. [adapted from publisher]