'South-South' Collaboration for Health: A Case for an Association of African Health Institutions (AAHI)

Africa is the only continent without an association of medical schools or other health institutes. Many African health institutions function under difficult circumstances, but these issues can be addressed via collaboration between near by institutions. Without a regional association many of these connections cannot be made, and problems remain unaddressed. During a meeting with the African medical and biomedical schools at a conference in Ghent, Belgium in September 2006 the African Association of Health Institutions (AAHI) was founded. Since its inception, AAHI has met on several occasions to develop a charter and objectives. Taskforce members developed the objectives aimed at facilitating cross border collaborations between African countries to strengthen health education programs and increase the number of trained health professionals at all levels. In 2008, AAHI will be working to hold a leadership training workshop to improve the leadership skills of the individuals working as professors and mentors at institutions throughout Africa. AAHI will also be working to address the many issues that hamper inter-African cooperation such as: language barriers (English, French, Portuguese and Spanish) and political set ups that make it difficult to initiate partnership and linkages; lack of IT infrastructures that make communication difficult between institutions. AAHI represents a crossing of international and professional boundaries to improve health outcomes throughout Africa.