Africa CDC Establishes New Institute for Workforce Development

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) is responding to the growing need for a well-trained and well-equipped public health workforce across the continent with its recently established its Institute for Workforce Development (IWD) to support and serve national public health institutes (NPHIs) in 55 African countries. Its mission is to enhance public health workforce capacity in member states to prevent, detect, and respond to public health threats and emergencies. Africa CDC has partnered with Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health to establish, develop, and maintain the IWD. 

Four priority training courses will be offered during 2019:

• "Transforming Public Health Surveillance" provides an overview of the history, purposes, activities, uses, elements, data sources, models, analyses, actions, preparation of reports, evaluation, and ethical and legal issues of public health surveillance.
• "Introduction to Antimicrobial Resistance" provides an overview of the history, risk, and burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR); the implications of the use and misuse of antimicrobials in humans, animals, and the environment; AMR diagnostics and surveillance; and strategies to contain AMR, such as One Health.
• "Proposal Writing" provides guidance on developing a strong application that allows reviewers to better evaluate the science and merits of a proposal. Participants will learn how to put their ideas into words, arrange a clear and concise proposal, and search grant markets for potential funders.
• "Leadership and Management" enhances leadership, managerial, interpersonal, political, informatics-savvy, and systems-thinking skills needed to successfully lead an organization in our ever-changing global environment, and creating a positive work setting to mitigate against brain-drain, while meeting the demands of keeping the world safe.

Africa faces a public health workforce shortage. IWD will, therefore, engage and leverage African expertise (e.g., African Schools of Public Health and Veterinary Medicine, Colleges of Medicine, Business Schools) on the continent to design, develop, and deploy context-appropriate, culturally sensitive, and self-sustaining in-service and pre-service training. This training will ensure there is a well-trained public health workforce able to effectively and efficiently prevent, detect, and respond to public health threats, in compliance with the International Health Regulations 2005.

IWD will collaborate with Africa CDC’s Regional Collaborating Centers, NPHIs, ministries of health, academic and research institutions, and subject matter experts on the continent to identify priority areas and conceive, design, develop, and deploy training to address them. Additionally, global partners in health security will be engaged. IWD is an undertaking filled with opportunities, challenges, and lessons. The first year is focused on laying a strong needs-based, academic foundation for a best-practices, world-class training environment. Africa CDC and Emory University are committed to pedagogic approaches, systems, tools, and processes for training to be sustained, streamlined, and scaled for the years to come.

To learn more about the Africa CDC IWD, please visit us or find us on Facebook.