Taking the lead from national leaders: Leadership for Women's Health developing and coordinating partnerships to operationalize First Ladies Initiatives work in Africa

Building international partnerships that are driven by national strategic goals, in keeping with globally-agreed objectives such as the MDGs, is essential to capacity- building and self-determination in nation-building. Donor interests, flush funding streams, or excess commodity-dumping has no place in sustainable development today. Based on this premise the Leadership for Women's Health (LWH) project of the First Ladies Initiative (FLI) is working in tandem with several African First Ladies to help achieve their top priority projects in keeping with national development goals. Connections to partners from various sectors, including business, construction, sustainable design, appropriate technology, management, manpower development, education, and health are being forged to achieve both short and long-term national goals. Using the translational science model recently implemented by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to move clinical research into community practice, LWH/FLI are identifying best practices both in-country and internationally to bring excellence to community development from a "tree-tops to grass-roots" model. Discussion will center on the LWH/FLI partnership development in Sierra Leone, demonstrating its synchronicity with the First Lady of Sierra Leone's WISH program to address MDGs 3-6. Examples of the wholistic community-development approach, as well highlights from similar work in Namibia will also be shared.