Chatham House West Africa Global Health Leaders Fellowship 2016

Infectious diseases remain the overwhelming cause of mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. A fundamental missing piece in prevention and control of epidemics and pandemics is a strong policy framework for public health activities across sectors. Due in part to health workforce shortages, leadership responsibilities have been assigned throughout the systems to professionals who have a limited opportunity for training in policy formulation and implementation. Chatham House is uniquely positioned to work with the ascending leadership in West Africa to close this skill gap.

The fellowship begins in September 2016.

• Total duration: 12 months

• Month 1: London – orientation, intensive curriculum and mentoring.

• Months 2–10: Home country – completing fieldwork on chosen research projects, with distance mentorship and selected on-site supervision.

• Months 11–12: London – project finalization and presentation.

Potential 2016 research topics

1. Antimicrobial Resistance – AMR has been incompletely studied in sub-Saharan Africa.

Research areas of particular interest are: Policy on prescription and registration of drugs, use in animals (agricultural policy), access to quality testing of pharmaceuticals

2. Implementation of the International Health Regulations – A legal and policy framework is the first core requirement of the International Health Regulations (IHR). What are the specific requirements at country level to facilitate IHR compliance? There are additional ‘requirements’ in One Health which relate to the IHR, for example the OIE Tool for the Evaluation of Performance of Veterinary Services (OIE PVS Tool) of World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). Consideration of how these are or could be integrated to streamline system evaluations is an additional important area of current discussion.

3. Achieving Universal Health Coverage – Although global commitment to achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) was made in a 2012 UN resolution and in the Sustainable Development Goals, the world has a long way to go to meet this goal. The World Bank and WHO estimate that around 400 million people lack access to at least one essential health service and that around 100 million are impoverished every year because of health care costs.  We would like our fellows to study how countries, at all income levels, are formulating and implementing strategies to reach UHC, and apply these lessons to their own countries.

4. The Role of Private Industry in Public Health – During the Ebola outbreak, a number of major commercial concerns (e.g. mines, rubber plantations) continued to operate even in areas with a significant incidence of Ebola.   They used public health measures not only to protect their workers, but extended these to the surrounding communities from where their workers came.  They appear to have developed a variety of culturally sensitive tools supported by education.  Studies to assess the detailed nature, efficacy and transferability of these programmes to other parts of the private sector and to quasi-commercial areas of the public sector (e.g. airports and hospitals) will be supported.

• This fellowship is targeted at individuals from West Africa with a background in public health, in senior management positions, who may not have an extensive background in policy development and implementation but wish to enhance their policy-making and leadership skills and effect change.
• A letter of support from the candidate’s current employer is required.