Accordia Global Health Foundation Calls for Greater Investment to Build African Healthcare ...( To improve h...),Health

To improve health outcomes in Africa over the long term, the continent’s healthcare leadership must be strengthened and expanded at the individual, institutional, and network levels, Accordia Global Health Foundation’s new report concludes.

Washington, DC (Vocus) June 18, 2009 -- To improve health outcomes in Africa over the long term, the continent’s healthcare leadership must be strengthened and expanded at the individual, institutional, and network levels, Accordia Global Health Foundation’s new report concludes.

Building Healthcare Leadership in Africa: A Call to Action notes that it is time to move from emergency responses to the infectious disease crisis to investment in Africa’s long term capacity to address the health needs of its citizens. A key element in this capacity-building effort must be the development of a strong cadre of leaders and managers at all points along the healthcare continuum, and at all levels of responsibility. Although considerable progress has been made in improving Africa’s health outcomes in recent decades, there is still much to be done. The report explains:

“Africa’s healthcare structure and those who serve within it are faced with dynamic economic, policy, and political contexts as well as evolving forces of globalization that create a tremendously challenging environment. However, the opportunities also have never been greater. Leadership at all levels of the health system is required to scale up effective interventions, discontinue those that are not working, align global funding streams for sustainable impact, and motivate a health workforce that is faced each day with basic challenges and resource shortages.

“Success depends on adoption of a bold, sustained approach to improving health in Africa that includes an explicit emphasis on the development of leading individual
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