The Sub-Saharan African Medical Schools Study (SAMSS) website is a portal for information on medical education in Sub-Saharan Africa. It highlights reports and articles that shed light on the current state of medical education in the region and describes innovations and trends that will shape the future of medical education in Africa. Links to relevant resources are also provided, as well as information about the pioneering work done by the SAMSS team. SAMSS is committed to addressing the extremely low physician to population ratio (13/100,000) in sub-Saharan Africa, arguing that any efforts to stabilise and improve health in the region must address this shortage of physicians. The primary goal of SAMSS is to increase the level of practical knowledge about medical education in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to inform educators, policy makers, and international funders about the challenges and opportunities for increasing the capacity of African medical schools and the retention of their graduates.
Useful Resources
This guide sets out the legal responsibilities of South African local government and our rights under the Constitution and in law. It shows how to engage government from inside, by participating in formal processes, and from outside by going public through complaints, petitions, protest action, the media and the courts.
This toolkit is published by the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) with the support of UNESCO. It provides guidance for women’s organisations in Africa on how to organise around freedom of information. It has compiled five case studies from five African countries, namely, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia under different scenarios. As women continue to remain one of the most marginalised groups in African countries, the guide can assist NGOs in adopting new tools in ensuring gender rights and equality. The five case studies discussed in the book provide ideas and experiences faced by organisations lobbying for drafting and passing of a law where ordinary citizens have access to governmental information. From countries like Ghana and Cameroon, where no such law has even been drafted to countries like South Africa where such legislation exists. Studying these case stories from different countries can assist organisations to lobby for such a law and if it exists, how it can be used to create awareness within the community, especially for women empowerment. In general, the toolkit aims to mobilise women’s NGOs to take up freedom of information for ensuring rights and justice for women.
The World Health Statistics report is an essential resource for policy-makers and researchers working on the identification and reduction of health inequities. A dedicated section in the 2011 report presents data from 93 countries using three health indicators - percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel, measles immunisation coverage among 1-year-olds, and under-five mortality rate - disaggregated according to urban or rural residence, household wealth and maternal education level. The data presented refer to ratios and differences between the most-advantaged and least-advantaged groups.
The aim of this training tool kit is to increase the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacity, skills and knowledge of those who plan, implement, and evaluate innovative, integrated health and community development programmes in low-resource settings. The tool kit provides managers, technical specialists, and M&E staff with user-friendly, modifiable training components to adapt for a specific developing-country and programmatic context. Users will learn to conduct effective M&E from programme inception to indicator selection through assessment design. The tool kit also promotes M&E efforts that highlight the integrated nature of these programmes and the unique contributions Population, Health and Environment (PHE) programmes make over traditional single-sector efforts.
The African Health Observatory website is intended to provide an open, transparent, collaborative platform that supports and facilitates the acquisition, generation, diffusion, translation and use of information, evidence and knowledge by countries to improve national health systems and outcomes. It consists of: a web portal for easy access to the best available information; a data-statistics platform enabling data download, processing and analysis, or access to ready-made statistics; a wiki-based collaborative space for the production and updating of comprehensive and analytical country profiles based on both quantitative and qualitative information; a repository of key publications from or associated with the Observatory; the African Health Monitor a quarterly periodical; and, a platform and relevant tools that enable networking, collaborative work and learning within and between groups, communities of practice, institutions, and national health observatories.
This report is a collaboration between traditional medicine practitioners and scientists, and identifies 22 plants used in east Africa with possible anti-malarial properties. In recent years, there has been an emphasis on the use of artemisinin-based medicines based on the Artemisia annua shrub. The recent interest in Artemisia annua, the development of resistance to existing drugs and the limited access of poor communities to modern drugs have stimulated research in the current use and future potential of other plant products in treating malaria, both as part of traditional health care practices and in developing new conventional medicines. This guide describes a range of trees and shrubs that are used as anti-malarial treatments in East Africa. The species chosen for description have been determined by traditional medical practitioners, rural communities and scientists as among those that have potential for further study and development as tree and shrub crops. The intention of this guide is to support the further development of the cultivation of these species by smallholders in the East Africa region.
The Global Health Observatory theme pages provide data and analyses on global health priorities. Each theme page provides information on global situation and trends highlights, using core indicators, database views, major publications and links to relevant web pages on the theme. Comprehensive information is also provided on the Millennium Development Goals. The Health Equity section is focused on urban health and women and health.
This tool is intended to support countries as they design and implement national health sector strategies in compliance with legal obligations and commitments. It focuses on practical options and poses critical questions for policy-makers to identify gaps and opportunities in the review or reform of health sector strategies as well as other sectoral initiatives. It is intended for use by various actors involved in health planning and policy making, implementation or monitoring of health sector strategies, namely ministries of health and other sectors, national human rights institutions, development partners and civil society organisations. The tool provides support, as opposed to a set of detailed guidelines, to assess health sector strategies. It allows for assessment at three levels: 1) state obligations and commitments, 2) national legal, policy and institutional frameworks, and 3) health sector strategies, using the various components/building blocks of a health system.
Tips and Tricks is intended to be a resource to grant seekers, as it will provide a source of detailed information on grant-giving organisations existing in Tanzania in the following areas: reproductive health; safe motherhood; adolescent and sexual reproductive health; HIV and AIDS; population and development; women empowerment/gender; health integrated projects; and livelihood.