New funding to strengthen postgraduate medical training in five African countries

This new programme of work will allow King’s to work closely with health partners in Africa to identify the strategies and resources needed to strengthen postgraduate medical training and build an advocacy programme to put it on national and global policy agendas, ensuring vital investments are made in this area.

Over the past 20 years, KGHP has had great success supporting the development of undergraduate and in-service health education, as well as strengthening a range of hospital services. However, we have yet to tackle the main reason why talented, young graduates leave their country’s health sector: the lack of postgraduate opportunities to become the specialists, leaders, and teaching faculty of the future.

Our partners in Africa have frequently highlighted this need and we have observed in our own programmes that a lack of clinical specialists can be a critical barrier to strengthening the health workforce and the quality of care delivered within a health system.

With this funding, KGHP will work with partners over a three-year period to:

• Develop a postgraduate medical education strategy for each of our five partner countries, convening national stakeholders to agree the model of training and accreditation, and provide a needs assessment for what is required to deliver training in priority specialties, clarifying leadership, governance, and operational components.
• Map out current and potential funders and implementing partners for delivering postgraduate medical education, assessing where existing capabilities could be harnessed, and identifying the additional resources required.
• Advocate for investment in postgraduate medical training across the global health policy community by combining existing evidence with new insights generated from this work. KGHP will engage key stakeholders including national ministries of health, bilateral donors, philanthropies, international agencies and the academic community.

Our funding partner, CRI Foundation is a private foundation based in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. They provide grants to organizations and entities dedicated to improving health outcomes in Africa.