The African Development Bank (AfDB) has announced ten winners of its eHealth competition after receiving more than one hundred proposals from innovators across Africa.
The first AfDB eHealth award recognizes the current work being done in e- and m-health in Africa. It aims to encourage the production and sharing of knowledge on eHealth solutions and provide added value through the sharing of lessons learnt in e- and m-health. One hundred and sixteen high-quality proposals were received and reviewed by an expert panel. A total of 40 short-listed projects were asked to submit a full proposal.
Winners will be invited to present their innovation during a business event organized by the AfDB on September 23 24, 2013 in Tunisia. An award ceremony will be organized to recognize the contribution of winning projects to development in Africa. Certificates will be awarded and several opportunities will be given to innovators to share their experiences.
Investments in Skills & Technology are at the center of the Bank's development agenda. New technologies have a transformative power on governance and service delivery. The technological revolution in Africa can be harnessed to accelerate inclusive growth and job creation.
In the health sector, technology offers the opportunity for more transparency and accountability in service delivery as well as evidence-based practice and error reduction, diagnostic accuracy, and treatment. It can facilitate client empowerment, enabling better self-care and health decision-making. It can also be used to shift tasks down the skills ladder, thereby helping address skills shortages. Finally, it can raise cost efficiency by streamlining processes, reducing waiting times, and improving accuracy of data.
Selection process
The list of winners for the first AfDB eHealth award was selected by a technical committee composed of international experts from African countries and international organizations. The proposals were evaluated according to criteria that included: a clear description and analysis of the most important health challenge addressed by the project; a description of proposed eHealth solution and how it alleviates the challenge or mitigates its effects; a description of innovative aspects of the proposed solution; useful lessons learned and recommendations; implementation arrangements; budgetary estimates; key strengths of the institution and partners leveraged to achieve project goal and objectives; estimated impact of roll-out of proposed solution throughout the country; quality of information and data provided; and letters of recommendation.
The technical committee reviewed and rated the proposals and ten winners have been identified against the above mentioned criteria. To reflect the variety of proposals received and health challenges addressed, proposals were organized into four categories: Access to health information; Empowering the health workforce; Health education for the public and Delivering health services.The eHealth Award is part of AfDB's new Human Capital Development Strategy, which includes investments in ICT for better governance and service delivery, particularly in health. The AfDB recognizes that Africa's impressive information revolution is enabling ICT innovations to potentially deliver more services for the money, and to deliver them to populations that previously had little or no access.
