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CHEPSAA Archive

CHEPSAA on the home straight; ending on a high note

The Consortium for Health Policy and Systems Analysis in Africa (CHEPSAA) is counting down to its official conclusion, with only 2 weeks to go before the end of the project grant. Instead of winding down, however, we are planning a jam-packed final phase of the project that will see us ending this collaboration on a high note.

The major event during this period will be CHEPSAA's end-of-project meeting, which will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa from 26-29 January 2015. This meeting will be attended by colleagues who have worked on CHEPSAA since its inception in 2011, participants in the CHEPSAA Emerging Leaders Programme, representatives of organisations and networks in Africa and the Middle East, as well as colleagues from as far afield as Bangladesh and Indonesia. All-in-all there will be approximately 60 participants.

This meeting will showcase CHEPSAA's activities, outputs and impacts, but will also stimulate discussion of potential future areas of work and key lessons in building the field of health policy and systems research and analysis (HPSR+A) for academics, policymakers and funders.

The objectives of this meeting are to:

  • Share CHEPSAA's experience of building HPSR+A capacity in Africa with interested colleagues from Africa and elsewhere;
  • Reflect on CHEPSAA's work in light of the experiences of other interested colleagues and to learn from these colleagues;
  • Reflect on the external evaluation of CHEPSAA and its lessons; and
  • Identify key lessons for the various stakeholders involved in HPSR+A field-building and future potential activities to take forward to strengthen capacity in the field.

CHEPSAA's final month began with the good news that the HPSR+A asset and needs assessment of CHEPSAA's partner in Ghana will soon be published in the Ghana Medical Journal. This adds to CHEPSAA's other peer-reviewed publications, which include the empirical findings of the CHEPSAA-wide HPSR+A asset and needs assessment, the methodology and implementation lessons of the asset and needs assessment, and the findings of the asset and needs assessment conducted by the South African CHEPSAA partners.

In addition, we also hope to make available in the coming days:

  • Guidance on how to conduct HPSR+A capacity assessments in academic settings, including tools that can be adapted to different contexts;
  • The final versions of CHEPSAA's two open-access courses: Introduction to Complex Health Systems and Introduction to Health Policy and Systems Research;
  • A document outlining the key activities and successes of the Emerging Leaders Programme, including the key competencies that CHEPSAA sought to build through the Emerging Leaders Programme; 
  • A discussion document around the themes of specialist Masters training in HPSR+A and a Doctorate in Public Health in Africa; and
  • A briefing note describing and analysing how CHEPSAA has networked internally and externally to build the field of HPSR+A in Africa.

Follow us on Twitter (@hpsa_africa) or check out this website to keep abreast of the latest developments and help us to celebrate the conclusion of this project, which has made an important contribution to assessing the state of the HPSR+A field in Africa and then building that field through, among other things, contributing high-quality course materials, inspiring a new cohort of HPSR+A leaders and promoting an exchange of ideas between those active in HPSR+A in Africa.

CHEPSAA Archive