Reports

Return on Investment: The Long-Term Impact of Building Healthcare Capacity in Africa

At an event in Washington D.C. on July 27 2010, Accordia Global Health Foundation released a new report entitled Return on Investment: The Long-Term Impact of Building Healthcare Capacity in Africa.

Following more than a decade of emergency response to the infectious disease crisis in Africa, the focus of global health efforts has shifted towards health systems strengthening and capacity building. At the same time, given the global economic climate, there is increasing urgency to more effectively gauge the impact of investments in the health sector to better inform future strategies.

However, the shift towards longer-term approaches creates a challenge. There are inherent difficulties in establishing metrics that meet short-term funding requirements while fully capturing and clearly articulating the impact of the investment, which may evolve over decades. Yet, without robust measures, it will be difficult to sustain the long-term outlook and funding streams that are heralded as the critical next step in preparing Africa to fight this epidemic and future health crises.

Return on Investment: The Long-Term Impact of Building Healthcare Capacity in Africa discusses some of the work being done to translate the call to action into reality in key areas of long-term capacity-building; including leadership development, health services training, research capacity building, research to policy to practice, and institutional strengthening.

Responding to a growing desire to better assess the impact of programs designed to provide lasting solutions to the infectious disease crisis in Africa, the report’s authors discuss the opportunities and challenges inherent in evaluating long-term impact of programmatic interventions, and offer examples of some of the early work being done to measure the effectiveness of capacity-building initiatives on African health systems. The report concludes that:

“There is a clear call to action for better measurement of the return on investment in health and for a deeper understanding not only of what works but also why it works. The entire global health community is being challenged to ask new questions and seek new answers. Are we leveraging our combined investments to achieve the greatest long-term health impact? Are we oriented towards meeting the greatest needs of society? Who is leading local efforts? Are we measuring what counts?

“This call to action presents a strategic opportunity to test and refine new approaches, produce relevant and timely information, and contribute to the overall field of capacity building in ways that can provide lasting benefits.”

Contributing authors to the report include Niles Friedman, director of global programs for BroadReach Healthcare; Dr. Michael Johnson, deputy director of the Fogarty International Center; Maarten Kok, professor of health policy and diplomacy at the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development; Dr. Linda Kupfer, acting director of Fogarty International Center’s Division of International Science Policy, Planning, and Evaluation; Bjorg Palsdottir, cofounder and director for program development at the Training for Health Equity Network: THEnet; Theresa M. Riddle, managing director and founder of the Crossland Group; Dr. Rachel Sturke, evaluation officer for the Fogarty International Center; and Kelly S. Willis, senior vice president for global health programs at Accordia Global Health Foundation. Dr. Jeff Sturchio, CEO of the Global Health Council, authored the report’s foreword.

A PDF version of Return on Investment: The Long-Term Impact of Building Healthcare Capacity in Africa is now available. Please click here to download the full report.

Below is a video of the event. 

 

The Agenda, Presenter and Panelist Biographies and the Press Release from the release event are also available.
 

 

Building Healthcare Leadership in Africa: A Call to Action

Building Healthcare Leadership in Africa: A Call to Action was released on June 18, 2009 at an event in Washington, DC ( Video and materials from the event are available below ). With contributions from noted experts on leadership development and strengthening African healthcare systems, and informed by the presentations and discussions that took place at Accordia’s 2009 Infectious Diseases Summit, Building Healthcare Leadership in Africa: A Call to Action considers the opportunities and challenges inherent in building healthcare leadership in Africa at the individual, institutional, and network levels. The report’s foreword was written by Ambassador Mark Dybul (former U.S. Global AIDS coordinator) who notes in it that:

The work that PEPFAR, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, and other institutions are doing is also changing ideas about the best way to provide development resources. These efforts are demonstrating that partnerships should be focused on building capacity for a sustainable response. Federal global health policy has dramatically shifted to acknowledge that the people of host nations are the leaders in this fight, and our role is to support them.

An important way of providing that support is by encouraging leadership development efforts—for individuals, institutions, and networks—like those laid out in this report by Accordia Global Health Foundation. As the report makes clear, leadership is critical to Africa’s long-term success in addressing its healthcare challenges, and more focus must be placed on the development of leaders at all levels of the healthcare continuum.

The report features contributions from authors including Joseph Dwyer (Director of the Management and Leadership Program at Management Sciences for Health), Dr. Peter Ngatia (Director, Capacity Building for the African Medical and Research Foundation -AMREF), Theresa M. Riddle (Managing Director and Founder of The Crossland Group), Dr. Nelson Sewankambo (Principal of Makerere University's College of Health Sciences in Kampala, Uganda and Vice President of Accordia Global Health Foundation), and Kelly S. Willis (Senior Vice President for Program Development at Accordia).

A PDF version of Building Healthcare Leadership in Africa: A Call to Action is now available. Please click here to download the full report.

Please click here to view video from the 2009 release event.  The Agenda, Report Presentation, Presenter and Panelist Biographies and the Press Release from the release event are also available.