Facing the Public Health Crisis in East Africa through Strengthened Leadership & Management

When the MDGs were adopted in 2000, there was much hope about the progress that countries around the world would make to achieve their targets by 2015. However, despite the large inputs of financial and other resources, most countries are not on track to meet their goals. We have known for years what to do to prevent maternal and infant mortality and the spread of communicable diseases, yet we have not seen the expected improvements. Until there are strong leadership and management capabilities at all levels in the health system, we will continue to see these disappointing results. There are many borders that need to be crossed in order to bring attention to leadership and management- the role of health managers is not valued, doctors and nurses often do not collaborate as peers, and it is assumed that doctors are natural born leaders. Despite these challenges, there are proven pathways to strengthen leadership and management. East African health professionals and educators from different countries have come together to share their experiences and to work together to build leadership and management capacity in pre-service and in-service programs. They use these pathways to develop skills over time using a problem-based approach with teams. The experience of integrating a Leadership Development Program into the curriculum at the Makerere University Faculty of Medicine, Uganda and in East African public health associations will be used to demonstrate best practices in building sustainable leadership and management capacity in current and future health leaders.