HEALTH: 12 strategies for health

Africans must take the lead

The Commission report underscores the need for Africans to take the lead on the health, scientific, and development challenges in close collaboration with the global research community. It offers several recommendations to strengthen research and higher education sector, which among others, include: Each country to develop a 10 to 20-year strategic plan for national health research. This should be coupled with a financing strategy for creating and strengthening departments and institutions responsible for all areas of research.

Increase research and development funding to at least 1% of GDP and to   allocate at least 2% of national health expenditure and at least 5% of external aid for health projects and programmes to research and research capacity building’.

Invest in internationally competitive centres of scientific excellence and expand post-doctoral programmes to raise the quality of higher education and research.

Expand research and education collaborations, particularly within Africa, and reshape international research partnerships around mutual agenda setting and benefit.

Academic institutions in sub-Saharan countries to invest in the development of contextually relevant health sector governance and leadership programmes.

Finally, the report recommends that international agencies should support the strengthening of higher education and research institutions by incorporating core funding and removing arbitrarily low caps on overheads on project grants.

Research collaboration

With the lack of critical mass of skilled researchers in many African countries, strengthening regional research collaboration could be a strategic priority for the region.

African countries could consider creating a basket of funding for research which countries could contribute to. Researchers within the contributing countries would then compete for funding from the pool. Development partners can be invited to provide matching funds thereby increasing the size of the basket.

The African Development Bank or some other continental body could centrally manage the funds and underwrite the associated administrative costs. Further requirements can be introduced. For example, applications could be limited to collaborative research involving researchers from at least two countries or sub-regions. Preference could also be given to applications with collaborators from countries with weak national research systems.

These measures, together, will represent “a serious shift in mindsets”, which the commissioners argued is key to achieving meaningful and sustainable change in health in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Alex Ezeh is Executive Director, African Population and Health Research Center, Nelson Sewankambo is Professor of Internal Medicine, Makerere University & Peter Piot is Director and Handa Professor of Global Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

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Source: The Conversation