Project Description

Africa's Health in 2010 is a five-year successor to the Support for Analysis and Research in Africa (SARA) I and II projects under the Academy for Educational Development (AED). AED's core partners on the Africa's Health in 2010 project include: Abt Associates, Heartlands International Ltd., Population Reference Bureau, and the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

The purpose of the project is to provide strategic, analytical, communications and advocacy, and monitoring and evaluation technical assistance to African public and private institutions and networks to improve the health status of Africans.

Africa's Health in 2010 focuses on issues identification, analysis, sharing of promising practices, and monitoring and evaluation across the areas of maternal and newborn health; child survival; infectious diseases; reproductive health; multisectoral support to improving health outcomes including HIV/AIDS; nutrition; gender-based violence and health systems with emphasis on human resource for health, health financing and governance. It provides assistance with strategy development, policy analysis, communication, advocacy, monitoring and evaluation. Applying state-of-the-art technical expertise and principles of social development and communication and working collaboratively with African institutions, the project:

• Provides quality analysis and synthesis of information on health trends, promising practices, and program results
• Helps engage USAID field offices and selected African experts in shaping the Africa Bureau analytic agenda
• Packages and disseminates new information and lessons from the field, using best practices in knowledge management, information technology, and formats tailored to the needs of different audiences at multiple levels
• Uses systematic analyses of policy environments and target audiences to shape advocacy on priority issues, building the coalitions necessary to champion and shepherd policy and program change
• Influences policy and programs at the global, regional, and country levels by participating in technical working groups, developing guidelines, and testing and sharing new tools and approaches
• Creates a learning environment, using results from monitoring and evaluation, consultative processes, and strategic reviews to feed into programming

The expected results of Africa's Health in 2010 programs and approaches are:

• Improved policies, increased resources, and scaled-up programs to improve maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition, and to mitigate the consequences of HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, and emerging diseases in Africa
• Targeted documentation and dissemination, based on evidence, and its use in the programming of lessons and best practices (for example, for increased coverage and quality of priority health services, community approaches, and strengthened health systems)
• Increased analytical, communication, and advocacy capacity of African institutions and networks, including increased advocacy for multisectoral approaches to health improvement and gender-sensitive programming