African-led health research and capacity building- is it working?

Abstract

Background: Africa bears a disproportionately high burden of globally significant disease but has lagged in knowledge production to address its health challenges. In this contribution, we discuss the challenges and approaches to health research capacity strengthening in sub-Saharan Africa and propose that the recent shift to an African-led approach is the most optimal. Methods and findings: We introduce several capacity building approaches and recent achievements, explore why African-led research on the continent is a potentially paradigm-shifting and innovative approach, and discuss the advantages and challenges thereof. We reflect on the approaches used by the African Academy of Sciences (AAS)funded Sub-Saharan African Network for TB/HIV Research Excellence (SANTHE) consortium as an example of an effective African-led science and capacity building programme. We recommend the following as crucial components of future efforts: 1. Directly empowering African-based researchers, 2. Offering quality training and career development opportunities to large numbers of junior African scientists and support staff, and 3. Effective information exchange and collaboration. Furthermore, we argue that long-term investment from international donors and increasing funding commitments from African governments and philanthropies will be needed to realise a critical mass of local capacity and to create and sustain world-class research hubs that will be conducive to address Africa's intractable health challenges. Conclusions: Our experiences so far suggest that African-led research has the potential to overcome the vicious cycle of brain-drain and may ultimately lead to improvement of health and science-led economic transformation of Africa into a prosperous continent.

National Public Health Institutes: A Scoping Review

“…A study exploring research infrastructure in Africa reported signi cant resource constraints in terms of supportive policies, legislation, infrastructure, human capacity, and funding (66) that could be areas for NPHIs to support. Recent ndings suggest that local capacity building efforts supporting research may have important dividends (67). Articles focused on how NPHI-led research informed policy decisions has been corroborated by studies demonstrating the return of research investments in the form of increased MoH budgets (68) and policy reform (69).…”

National public health institutes: A scoping review

“…A study exploring research infrastructure in Africa reported significant resource constraints in terms of supportive policies, legislation, infrastructure, human capacity, and funding (Kirigia & Wambebe, 2006) that could be areas for NPHIs to support. Recent findings suggest that local capacity building efforts supporting research may have important dividends (Kasprowicz et al, 2020). Articles focused on how NPHI-led research informed policy decisions has been corroborated by studies demonstrating the return of research investments in the form of increased MoH budgets (González-Block, 2009) and policy reform (Knaul et al, 2006).…”

Institutional Level Drivers of Gender Inequitable Scientific Career Progression in Sub-saharan Africa

“…We have argued that the macro-level forces of neo-colonial relationships in funding structures exacerbates the racism in grant allocation as perceived by African scientists. Others have similarly posited that the challenges around funding structures are external to Africa, and are engrained in legacies of colonialism that continue to favour Northern-based researchers as parachute researchers (41). This problem is exacerbated by requiring grant applicants to hold a faculty position, without acknowledging the biases on the basis of ageism, favouritism and nepotism in provision of tenure that are common in higher education institutions in Africa (9,28,42).…”