Governance Village

BY BRANDON CURRIE

One of Africa’s foremost health experts, Dr. Nelson Sewankambo is the dean of medicine at Makerere University (in his native Uganda), a board member and founding partner of Salama SHIELD, and director of the newly-minted Africa Initiative at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo, Ontario. As one of the first scientists to publish data on HIV/AIDS in Africa and for his dedication to finding long-term solutions to the epidemic, he has been praised as a pioneer in the fight against infectious diseases in his home country and around the world.

During the launch of the Africa Initiative in July 2008, Governance Village sat down briefly with Dr. Sewankambo to find out how his innovative work in the field has informed the new program.

Many international institutions have Africa-related programming. What makes this ‘Africa Initiative’ different?

It is unique in that [the Africa Initiative] links a think-tank in the North, an NGO in the South (Salama SHIELD) and also an academic institution (Makerere University). Usually that’s not the case – everyone works alone. But here you have the three teaming up in their areas of strength. There are synergies that can be accomplished.

How will this help this Africa project to succeed where so many have failed?

The way we want to do business is different. We would like host communities to participate in finding research priorities, shaping themes and implementing activities.

When new research is being done, most times Northern institutions define what needs to be researched. Like in Uganda, we have a lot of malaria. So they study mosquito nets. Here we are saying: ‘let the people affected by malaria be involved.’

Though we have established five research themes – developed in close partnership with Makerere University – we are leaving it wide open in our methodological approach and implementation. For example, there will be ‘conceptual events’ for people in the community to come and discuss their issues. What emerges from those forums will inform our priorities.

Is this participatory element of the initiative an extension of lessons learned in your public health work?

There are many organizations working in development that prescribe. ‘You need a well. You need a protected stream. You need a hospital.’ And then they build the hospital.

Salama SHIELD engages affected people – they decide what they need. The people state what their priorities are. For example they told us: ‘We want to start up a community development centre so we can meet and discuss what needs to be done.’ All they needed was someone to facilitate and help and we’re doing that.

That’s what, in part, led to the establishment of Salama SHIELD and now the Africa Initiative. Instead of saying ‘this area is poor, children are not going to school’ and paying school fees, we ask the community: how can the program work for you here. How can it be applied?

At the moment, you seem to be focused on Uganda. How will this project grow to encompass the enormity of Africa?

One of our priority activities in this project is to utilize the IGLOO network to exchange information. It’s true that in Africa we may not know what is happening on the other side of the continent. How do we facilitate this transfer so we do not have to re-invent the wheel? Africa is not as well-endowed as North America with frequent conferences… In the absence of access to academic journals – which are commonplace in the North – how do we make information widely available? The IGLOO project becomes extremely important. We will use that to provide the information that we hope will be translated into policy and action. Making it more accessible brings us closer to that translation.