Friends of Chitambo: Health is global

Here are brief reports from 3 global health conferences taking place in mid-October 2016:

1. The Zambian UK Health Workforce (ZUKHWA) conference, Zambian Embassy, London, Wednesday 19th October:

This annual conference organised by the University of Edinburgh Global Health Academy: http://www.ed.ac.uk/global-health/research/project-profiles/health-systems-strengthening/zukhwa

The meeting was well attended by ZUKHWA members, UK-Zambians and others and was jointly chaired by the Zambian High Commissioner, His Excellency Mr. Muyeba Chikonde, and Lord Nigel Crisp, Independent member of the House of Lords/Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health.

Keynote speakers included Dr, Peter Mwaba, Permanent Secretary for Health, Ministry of Health, Zambia, and Professor Evarist Njelesani, Deputy Vice-Chancellor/Founding Dean, Lusaka Apex Medical University. Unfortunately, Dr. Mwaba was unable to attend and Ms. Eunice Sinyemu, THET-Zambia Country Manager, stepped in at very short notice to give an overview of Zambian health policy. This was a most enjoyable day.

2. The Tropical Health Education Trust (THET) annual conference followed on from ZUKHWA, on Thursday 20th and Friday 21st October: http://www.thet.org/

It was held at the Resource of London, Holloway, London. The theme was 'Evidence, effectiveness and impact' and the packed programme was opened by keynote presentations from: Dr Jim Campbell, Director of the Health Workforce Department, WHO; Hon Dr Joyce Moriku Kaducu, State Minister for Health - Primary Health Care, Uganda; and Rory Stewart, OBE MP FRSL, Minister of State for International Development.

The emphasis was on North/South health partnerships. There were many excellent breakout sessions and speakers and THET launched a new report, 'In our mutual interest', advocating the mutual benefits of global health links: http://www.thet.org/resource-library/in-our-mutual-interest

3. The Association of Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA) conference was taking place simultaneously, at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda (Monday 17th to Friday 21st October): http://ug-ahila.org/

By a miracle, our Zambian project partners, Consider and Vincent, were presenting the same paper and poster on the same day at almost the same time as FoCh Chair, Jo, was presenting these at the ZUKHWA conference in London! If that is not Co-development and Mutuality, what is?!

Here are links to our joint paper which is about knowledge translation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Xci-Qh9PixeERxLWVTd0FRS00/view?usp=sharing

WhatsApp communications were flying between the 2 venues (London and Kampala). Here are some photos: