The politics and practice of initiating a public health postgraduate programme in three universities in sub-Saharan Africa: the challenges of alignment and coherence.

Background: In-country postgraduate training programme in low and middle income countries are widely considered to strengthen institutional and national capacity. There exists dearth of research about how new training initiatives in public health training institutions come about. This paper examines a south-south collaborative initiative wherein three universities based in Ethiopia, Rwanda and Mozambique set out to develop a local based postgraduate programme on health workforce development/management through partnership with a university in South Africa.

Determinants of effective organisational capacity training: lessons from a training programme on health workforce development with participants from three African countries.

Background: Health systems in sub-Saharan Africa face multifaceted capacity challenges to fulfil their mandates of service provision and governance of their resources. Four academic institutions in Africa implemented a World Health Organisation-funded collaborative project encompassing training, curriculum development, and partnership to strengthen national leadership and training capacity for health workforce development. This paper looks into the training component of the project, a blended Masters programme in public health that sought to improve the capacity of personnel involved in teaching or management/development of human resources for health.

Health needs, health care seeking behaviour, and utilization of health services among lesbians, gays and bisexuals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Background: Studies show that sexual and gender minorities have unique health care needs and encounter complicated problems to access health services. Drawing on the intersectionality approach, this paper examines the intersecting factors that determine health care seeking behaviour and utilization of health care services among Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals (LGB) in Ethiopia including the diversity in experiences of these determinants and differences in the coping mechanisms to navigate these challenges within the LGB group. Despite the importance, there remains a paucity of evidence on the topic in Ethiopia.

Exploring multiple job holding practices of academics in public health training institutions from three sub-Saharan Africa countries: drivers, impact, and regulation.

Background: The paper examines external multiple job holding practices in public health training institutions based in prominent public universities in three sub-Saharan Africa countries (Rwanda, Ethiopia, Mozambique).

Objective: The study aims to contribute to broadening understanding about multiple job holding (nature and scale, drivers and reasons, impact, and efforts to regulate) in public health training schools in public universities.

Methods: A qualitative multiple case study approach was used.

Building capacity to develop an African teaching platform on health workforce development: a collaborative initiative of universities from four sub Saharan countries.

Introduction: Health systems in many low-income countries remain fragile, and the record of human resource planning and management in Ministries of Health very uneven. Public health training institutions face the dual challenge of building human resources capacity in ministries and health services while alleviating and improving their own capacity constraints. This paper reports on an initiative aimed at addressing this dual challenge through the development and implementation of a joint Masters in Public Health (MPH) programme with a focus on health workforce development by four academic institutions from East and Southern Africa and the building of a joint teaching platform.

Assessment of capacity for Health Policy and Systems Research and Analysis in seven African universities: results from the CHEPSAA project.

The importance of health policy and systems research and analysis (HPSR+A) is widely recognized. Universities are central to strengthening and sustaining the HPSR+A capacity as they teach the next generation of decision-makers and health professionals. However, little is known about the capacity of universities, specifically, to develop the field.