21st May, 2009
AMREF has been honoured for its work in promoting efficient management and control of HIV in Africa through training of competent managers and leaders of health institutions.
AMREF received the recognition from Johnson&Johnson (J&J) at a dinner held in Accra, Ghana, to honour J&J’s partners in promoting health in Africa, and West Africa in particular. AMREF and J&J have collaborated with the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Global Business School Network (GBSN) to create a Management Development Institute for managers and leaders of African HIV/AIDS organisations.
The intense one-week programme was created to equip managers with crucial knowledge and competencies to enable them to pool the meagre resources available to African health systems in order to deliver effective health care. It is held twice annually in Nairobi for managers in the East and Central Africa Region, and in Ghana for those in West Africa. Tutors are mainly local African business school faculty to ensure sustainability, availability of technical assistance and contextual relevance. Courses include organisational planning, financial, human resource and operations management, health management information systems, and monitoring and evaluation of programmes. Plans are at advanced stage to launch the programme in South Africa to cover the southern African region.
Mr Rene Kiamba, who is in charge of Johnson&Johnson’s Corporate Contributions Department in sub-Saharan Africa, said his company was privileged to work with AMREF whose vision and dedication had ensured the successful establishment of the MDI programme. “Working in partnership has created great momentum for health development on the continent, because we are able to do much more than any of us could have achieved on our own,” he said.
Receiving the award, AMREF’s Director for Capacity Building, Dr Peter Ngatia, thanked J&J for the award, which he described as “a symbol of great partnership and achievement not just for the AMREF, J&J, UCLA and GBSN, but for all those who work to ensure that HIV and AIDS is dealt with effectively”.
He added: “This is one of our flagship programmes, because it touches the heart of HIV and AIDS management. Training managers and leaders makes all the difference in effectively tackling the disease, and this partnership has been successful in making this happen.”
