28th November, 2008
Lack of competent leadership and management of Africa’s health institutions is a major barrier to the effective running of health services across the continent. Consequently, health indicators in the continent are still very poor despite increased investment in the sector in recent years and it is unlikely that the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDG) will be met.
To address the situation, the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) in Nairobi and the Centre Africain d'Etudes Supérieures en Gestion (CESAG) in Dakar, with support from the World Health Organisation, are spearheading the formation of a network of African institutions that provide management expertise and training with a view to improving the quality and quantity of leaders and managers and making health services more effective.
“Management and leadership have until now been considered non-issues in health,” says Dr Peter Ngatia, AMREF’s Director for Capacity Building. “Most hospitals and health facilities in Africa are run by doctors or other health professionals with little or no training in management and leadership. This is because it is has always been assumed that good health professionals – doctors and nurses – will also make good administrators, but this has been proven to be false. We need more than good medical and public health skills to make services functional and effective.”
Dr Ngatia adds: “There is glaring evidence of lack of managerial competence in health all across Africa, even in large health facilities like the tertiary hospitals. The institutions, almost without exception suffer perennial shortage of drugs, often not due to lack of money; the paradox of expired drugs and lack of drugs at the same time; or plentiful supplies of ARVs but acute shortage of malarial drugs, and dilapidated health facilities due to poor maintenance of infrastructure litter the continent, run by a skeleton staff who are overworked and demotivated.
The network will be formally launched next Wednesday, December 3, at AMREF headquarters in Nairobi at a meeting of representatives from 42 management resource institutions and health development agencies working on the continent. At an initial meeting held in Kampala Uganda in March 2008, where agreement was reached on the need for such a network, AMREF was selected to be the lead agency representing institutions from Anglophone (English-speaking) countries and CESAG representing Francophone (French-speaking) countries.
The network’s objective is to improve management and leadership training methods and approaches across the continent, expand research and evidence of what works, pool their expertise and other knowledge resources and advocate with governments and the international community on ensuring competent health leadership and management that produces results. This will ensure effective management of health services and efficient husbanding of resources to ultimately improved health for the people of Africa.
The WHO has actively supported and facilitated the creation of this network but it remains firmly led and managed by its constituent members as a truly African resource organisation. The initiative is also supported by various non-government development organisations and multilateral and bilateral organisations.
At the end of the meeting in Nairobi, the network is expected to ratify its constitution, and agree on a business strategy as well as an action plan to support members, particularly those needing assistance. The network aims to be a major catalyst for reaching the MDGs in Africa.
