Where is Canada On Africa?
Getting past despair with African Solutions and Canadian Partners
This is an Op-Ed featured in the April 11th edition of The Hill Times.
By: Dr. Teguest Guerma
http://www.hilltimes.com/page/view/guerma-04-11-2011
The statistics are grinding. One in six people on this planet with HIV/AIDS lives in South Africa. Not washing hands before eating kills more kids in Africa than starvation. There is one doctor for every 400 people in Canada – in Africa, it’s one for every 20,000.
Too much of what Canadians see of Africa is driven by campaigns of despair. After all, despair drives donor dollars to charities.
As Canadians ponder election priorities, we cannot and must not turn away from the African continent. Working every day in the most remote and disadvantaged communities, the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) sees hope and opportunity to build on the successes that come with community health education and more health workers.
The question for Canadians is not “do we continue supporting Africa”? Rather, ask where best to invest scarce resources. Look at the impacts of those investments in changing the health outcomes in communities targeted. Are fewer mothers dying? Are more babies living beyond five years?
Who are the organizations with the best track record in delivering relevant solutions with lasting impacts?
Health impacts are rarely sustainable when singularly focused on delivering a service like a hospital or treating one disease. Communities thrive when they learn to look after themselves and are linked to the health systems that also learn how to look after the communities.
The solutions are complex and made in Africa. As Africa’s leading health NGO, AMREF has learned much over the almost 60 years we have been working on health development. Partnerships with donors for funding, with corporations for knowledge transfer and with academics for research and the generation of science-based evidence are all essential platforms for AMREF’s success in Africa.
In Ethiopia, Canada’s Addax Foundation funded what has become a game-changing model for tackling malaria in remote communities. In South Africa, Canadians funded a remarkable program that works with traditional healers to educate them improved practices while also linking them to the formal health system so they can be part of the solution in keeping TB and HIV patients on treatment.
AMREF’s innovative strategy for leveraging ne
w technologies to rapidly train and upgrade the skills of Kenya’s nurses has exceeded expectations and is being replicated in Uganda and elsewhere.
Beyond donations, Canadians play important roles on many levels in partnering with Africans for better health outcomes. Canadian policy leadership on the global stage influences where donor dollars flow and emphasizes the recipient accountability for results. Federally, the Muskoka Initiative to fund maternal, newborn and child health has shaped global health policy and pushed other partners to positively impact some of the most marginalized and under resourced people and regions in the world.
Canada’s global health researchers are at the forefront of some of the most important innovations related to diagnostics and treatment of the diseases plaguing the poorest communities – developing treatments that are appropriate to the impoverished and remote settings in Africa.
This year, we celebrate with McMaster’s Faculty of Medicine the 25th Anniversary of AMREF’s first Diploma in Public Health. Developed in partnership with McMaster’s then Dean, Dr. John Evans and public health expert, Dr. Vic Neufeld, thousands of graduates are now actively delivering healthcare in African communities where doctors and nurses are rare.
Global health experts agree that the greatest health needs in Africa are for trained health workers and stronger government health systems that truly address the health needs of the communities. An overall shift in focus away from service delivery to primary health empowers communities to address basic health issues with integrated health management strategies that tackle challenges comprehensively rather than only one disease at a time.
Let’s continue to combine Canadian resources, innovation and collaboration with sustainable solutions from organizations like AMREF to deliver measurable and successful results across Africa.
Dr Teguest Guerma is an Ethopian-born infectious disease expert and advocate of health strategies developed in Africa, for Africans, by Africans. She was appointed Director General of the African Medical and Research Foundation in June 2010.
Dr. Teguest Guerma is currently on her first official trip to Canada visiting Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
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