Staff Exchange Programmes can yield several benefits for institutions. At the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), scientists are experiencing both direct and indirect benefits from such interactions. Some are working on jointly publishing research papers, while others have gained new skills.
As part of the staff exchange between Africa CDC and the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the first incoming cohort of six Africa CDC delegates spent a three-week visit at RKI in March 2023. The delegation was headed by Dr. Abdulaziz Mohammed, Head of the Division of Disease Control and Prevention at Africa CDC, who accompanied the other senior public health experts during the initial days. The most recent exchange took place from June 3-21, 2024, with nine RKI staff visiting the Africa CDC headquarters in Addis Ababa.
"The staff exchange programmes prepare a new generation of global public health leaders who are attentive to the impact of structures and settings on disease prevention and health promotion, can work across disciplines, and possess a high level of technical skills in their respective areas of expertise," said Adam Terefe, Learning Management Systems Technical Officer at Africa CDC, who coordinated the recent visit of experts from Germany. The programme strengthens individual competencies and skills and fosters networking between individuals of both institutions. "Through these individual networks, the institutional interlinkages will grow, enabling further improved sustainable cooperation and knowledge transfer," he added.
Dr Wessam Mankoula, Lead of the Africa CDC Emergency Operations Center, who participated in the 2023 exchange visit to RKI, said the collaborations he formed are now helping him expand the emergency operations centre at Africa CDC. He also acknowledged that the partnership has inspired the growth of the African Health Volunteers Corps (AVoHC), a network of African medical and public health professionals established by the African Union to support the response to public health emergencies in Africa.
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"The importance of these staff exchanges is not only in direct benefits but also in indirect benefits that come through access to expertise, labs, data processing, and operations," said Dr Sofonias Tessema, Programme Lead for Pathogen Genomics at Africa CDC, who also participated in the visit to RKI in 2023. The staff exchange is part of the "Developing Global Public Health Leadership" (DG-PHaL) programme, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Health until December 2024. The programme aims to develop institutional interlinkages and enable sustainable cooperation and knowledge transfer by networking and strengthening individual competencies. Thus, an annual cohort of twenty participants (ten from each organization) can visit the partner institution to focus on their skill-building and networking.
