Regional cooperation and health diplomacy in Africa: from intra-colonial exchanges to multilateral health institutions

Havik, Philip J.

doi:10.1590/s0104-59702020000300007

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 14 publications

(8 reference statements)

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“…[3][4][5] In Africa, regionalism has been influenced by international trade and economic interests, colonial histories, alignment of social and economic policies, and disease threats to public health -although health is not generally the core interest for organisations in regional governance. 6,7 Recent health crises, however, have increased attention to the role of regional bodies in health sector planning and response. The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, for instance, highlighted the importance of regional organisations in health emergencies as well as their involvement in strengthening public health and health systems in the global south.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Roles of Regional Organisations in Strengthening Health Research Systems in Africa: Activities, Gaps, and Future Perspectives

Jones

Sobngwi-Tambekou²,

Mijumbi-Deve

et al. 2022

Int J Health Policy Manag

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Background: Regional cooperation on health in Africa is not new. The institutional landscape of regional cooperation for health and health research, however, has seen important changes. Recent health emergencies have focussed regional bodies’ attention on supporting aspects of national health preparedness and response. The state of national health research systems is a key element of capacity to plan and respond to health needs – raising questions about the roles African regional bodies can or should play in strengthening health research systems. Methods: We mapped regional organisations involved in health research across Africa and conducted 18 interviews with informants from 15 regional organisations. We investigated the roles, challenges, and opportunities of these bodies in strengthening health research. We deductively coded interview data using themes from established pillars of health research systems – governance, creating resources, research production and use, and financing. We analysed organisations’ relevant activities in these areas, how they do this work, and where they perceive impact. Results: Regional organisations with technical foci on health or higher education (versus economic or political remits) were involved in all four areas. Most organisations reported activities in governance and research use. Involvement in governance centred mainly around agenda-setting and policy harmonisation. For organisations involved in creating resources, activities focused on strengthening human resources, but few reported developing research institutions, networks, or infrastructure. Organisations reported more involvement in disseminating than producing research. Generally, few have directly contributed to financing health research. They report gaps in research coordination, infrastructure, and advocacy at regional level. Finally, we found regional bodies’ mandates, authority, and collaborations influence their activities in supporting national health research systems. Conclusion: Continued strengthening of health research on the African continent requires strategic thinking about the roles, comparative advantages, and capability of regional organisations to facilitate capacity and growth of health research systems.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Roles of Regional Organisations in Strengthening Health Research Systems in Africa: Activities, Gaps, and Future Perspectives

Jones

Sobngwi-Tambekou²,

Mijumbi-Deve

et al. 2022

Int J Health Policy Manag

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“…In just three decades 1914-1945, Africa faced four major cataclysms between First World War, the Spanish Flu Epidemic in 1918, the 1929 economic crisis, and the Second World War. Despite the tremendous impact these crises had on health outcomes, the colonial powers did not favor a continental approach to health cooperation, and the efforts of the League of Nations Health Organization (LNHO) tended at best to build bilateral interactions which did not allow for continental health diplomacy [ 1 ]. This model pertained after 1945, despite the rise of multilateralism through United Nations (UN) institutions.…”

Section: Essaymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two different World Health Organization (WHO) regional offices were created to cover Africa: EMRO (1949) and AFRO (1951). Despite the continent high disease burden, AFRO´s planning capacity was “extremely limited” until the region's decolonization [ 1 ]. Given Africa's rising public health institutionalization movement, and in alignment with the “new public health order ” adopted by the African Union (AU) and the Africa CDC, it is necessary to better understand the health policy space, its key players, and governance mechanisms of Global Health Diplomacy (GHD) [ 2 ].…”

Section: Essaymentioning

confidence: 99%

Health diplomacy in Africa-opportunities post-COVID-19

Boujnah¹

2022

Pan Afr Med J

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For the last seventy years, Africa has suffered a disease burden that is steadily growing in scale and complexity. Despite that, health development in the continent has continued to rely on donors´ packages since decolonization. The last decade, however, has marked some health-related achievements on the continent such as the development of the Africa Health Strategy 2016-2030, the establishment of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the launch of The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and most recently the African Medicines Agency (AMA). These developments and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the importance and the opportunities of practicing Global Health Diplomacy on the continent. Home to 27% of the world´s countries, Africa has a tremendous global voting power which makes global health diplomacy an unequivocally effective soft power tool to achieve “The Africa we want”. In this paper, we will expand on the importance of Global Health Diplomacy (GHD) practice in Africa as a soft power tool, illustrate the COVID-19 response in the continent championed by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) as a case study, and offer some recommendations to sustain and strengthen GHD´s role in the continent.

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“…Acknowledging this history of regional bodies on the African continent and their health programmes and policies [2,3,[48][49][50], with emerging knowledge about their roles in health research [5,39,45], there is still much unknown about the constellation of actors in regionalism for health sciences research (HSciR). Therefore, this study aims to map the state-based regional organisations in Africa involved in HSciR, characterise the network of actors, and test the hypothesis of whether regional network strength correlates with national health research indicators.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping regional cooperation of state actors for health research systems in Africa: A social network analysis

Hedquist

Jones²,

Mijumbi-Deve³

et al. 2022

PLOS Glob Public Health

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Regional bodies can potentially play an important role in improving health research in Africa. This study analyses the network of African state-based regional organisations for health research and assesses their potential relationship with national health research performance metrics. After cataloguing organisations and their membership, we conducted a social network analysis to determine key network attributes of national governments’ connections via regional organisations supporting functions of health research systems. This data was used to test the hypothesis that state actors with more connections to other actors via regional organisations would have higher levels of health research performance across indicators. With 21 unique regional organisations, the African continent is densely networked around health research systems issues. In general, the regional network for health research is inclusive. No single actor serves as a nexus. However, when statistics are grouped by African Union regions, influential poles emerge, with the most predominate spheres of influence in Eastern and Western Africa. Further, when connectivity data was analysed against national health research performance, there were no statistically significant relationships between increased connectivity and higher performance of key health research metrics. The inclusive and dense network dynamics of African regional organisations for health research strengthening present key opportunities for knowledge diffusion and cooperation to improve research capacity on the continent. Further reflection is needed on appropriate and meaningful ways to assess the role of regionalism and evaluate the influence of regional organisations in strengthening health research systems in Africa.

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Regional cooperation and health diplomacy in Africa: from intra-colonial exchanges to multilateral health institutions

Cited by 8 publications

References 14 publications

The Roles of Regional Organisations in Strengthening Health Research Systems in Africa: Activities, Gaps, and Future Perspectives

The Roles of Regional Organisations in Strengthening Health Research Systems in Africa: Activities, Gaps, and Future Perspectives

Health diplomacy in Africa-opportunities post-COVID-19

Mapping regional cooperation of state actors for health research systems in Africa: A social network analysis

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