Need for more health professionals in Ethiopia

Project title: Strategic and Collaborative Capacity Development in Ethiopia and Africa (SACCADE)

The project aims at strengthening research and research education at Jimma University, with a highly qualified gender balanced staff and competent graduates, to be recognized internationally as a Center of Excellence in academic, evidence based and community relevant, research and research education, advancing research capacity of partners in the region.

Background

The Ethiopian government has called for an increase in the number of health professionals to mitigate the brain drain and to meet the demands of the population. Jimma University and St. Paul Millennium Hospital Medical College has responded to this challenge and the student intake at Jimma University and St. Paul Millennium Hospital Medical College has increased significantly over the past years.

However, most academic staff are very young at these institutions and they do not have adequate exposure and experience or research practice. Hence, the quality of student research outputs are also compromised as most staff is not adequately advising and mentoring students during their paper or thesis work. This has led to increased challenges in capacity related to research and research education. In order to ensure highly qualified human resources for health it is paramount to build research capacity in order to ensure that the educational programmes at Higher Education Institutions are built on evidence based knowledge.

Huge health and health related data are collected through community based education programs, but these data are not systematically stored. Most research findings are not communicated to stakeholders for evidence based decision making and planning and there is absence of research training centers that provides continuous support and training.

Although the Federal Government of Ethiopia as well as the Universities’ policies and guidelines includes a strong commitment to endorse gender equality and equity and guarantee full and equal participation of men and women in social, economic and political life there is a major challenge in reaching gender equality. At Jimma University female academics constitutes only13, 8 % and at St. Paul’s 24,5 %, and there is an urgent need to provide postgraduate opportunities and leadership training and promotion for women in order to achieve gender equality in higher education and research.

Capacity development for research and research education through strategic collaboration

Jimma University together with University of Oslo will collaborate in developing the competence of staff at Jimma University and St. Paul’s, at various levels within the health sciences, both to engage in research projects through post-graduate education and joint international/regional research projects as well as building capacity of staff to teach and supervise the students in planning research, implementation and dissemination of research findings. To enhance these efforts and to strengthen the Center for Research Methods in Health Sciences as a hub for research and research education at Jimma University, a data repository system will be established and a standardized ethical review board will be operationalized. When capacity is well developed at Jimma University, courses in research education will be offered to other Ethiopian and regional institutions. Gender equality will be at the core of all components of the project and a special women leadership program will be offered to participants from Ethiopian Higher education Institutions.

Key goals and achievements

Overall goal
To secure highly qualified human resources for health (HRH), with high scientific and evidence based knowledge that contribute to the improvement of health and quality of life in Africa.

The objectives of the project are

1. More and better qualified staff relevant to needs of Ethiopia/Africa
2. More and better research relevant to country/region
3. Establish systems for strong institutional capacity for knowledge dissemination, quality assurance and research at Jimma University
4. Ensured equal opportunities for female staff at Jimma University and St. Pauls Millennium Hospital Medical College