The CHEPSAA project

The development of sustained African health policy and systems research and teaching capacity requires the consolidation and strengthening of relevant research and educational programmes as well as the development of stronger engagement between the policy and research communities. The Consortium for Health Policy and Systems Analysis in Africa (CHEPSAA) will address both of these issues over the period 2011 - 2015. CHEPSAA’s goal is to extend sustainable African capacity to produce and use high quality health policy and systems research by harnessing synergies among a Consortium of African and European universities with relevant expertise. This goal will be reached through CHEPSAA’s five work packages:

  • assessing the capacity development needs of the African members and national policy networks;
  • supporting the development of African researchers and educators;
  • strengthening courses of relevance to health policy and systems research and analysis;
  • strengthening networking among the health policy and systems education, research and policy communities and strengthening the process of getting research into policy and practice;
  • project management and knowledge management.

The CHEPSAA project is led by Lucy Gilson (Professor: University of Cape Town & London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine).

PARTNERS

  • Health Policy & Systems Programme within the Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town, South Africa
  • School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, South Africa
  • Centre for Health Policy, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
  • Institute of Development Studies, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
  • School of Public Health, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
  • Tropical Institute of Community Health, Great Lakes University of Kisumu, Kenya
  • College of Medicine, University of Nigeria Enugu, Nigeria
  • London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom
  • Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
  • KarolinskaInstitutet, Sweden
  • Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, University of Basel, Switzerland

CHEPSAA WEBSITE

Suggested citation

CHEPSAA. (2013). Background to the Development of CHEPSAA’s Teaching Resources.Cape Town, Consortium for Health Policy & Systems Analysis in Africa.

/ This document is an output from a project funded by the European Commission (EC) FP7-Africa (Grant no. 265482). The views expressed are not necessarily those of the EC. /

CHEPSAA. (2013). Background to the Development of CHEPSAA’s Teaching Resources. Cape Town, Consortium for Health Policy & Systems Analysis in Africa.
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Background

CHEPSAA (Consortium for Health Policy and Systems Analysis in Africa) is a project funded by the European Union which aims to extend sustainable African capacity to produce and use high quality health policy and systems research by harnessing synergies among a Consortium of African and European universities with relevant expertise.

CHEPSAA was initiated to respond to the limited Health Policy and Systems Research and Analysis (HPSRA) capacity in Africa. An initial assets and needs assessment found that while some post-graduate training and centres of excellence in the field do exist across the continent, capacity to conduct and use HPSR+A is limited and there is a need to consolidate and develop this training and teaching capacity, as well as skills in curriculum development. As a pan-African consortium of universities engaged in teaching and research, CHEPSAA’s aims are to define the terrain and to develop the necessary capacity collaboratively, in response to the growing recognition of the importance of the field of health policy and systems analysis and research.

To this end, members of the CHEPSAA project decided to hold a series of curriculum workshops, in order to think about curriculum development, as well as to start to develop some relevant courses, which could eventually become modules in a specialist master’s programme in Health Policy and Systems. The resulting resources will be made available on an open access basis, so that they can be used by others and help to build a shared understanding of the field.

Target audience and graduate attributes

As one of the bases of designing a curriculum, we have considered and listed the attributes or qualities that graduates of a master’s degree in Health Policy and Systems should ideally have. The intended audience of such a master’s programme are health systems managers in state and NGO environments, and those planning to do research in the field. The attributes listed are fairly generic and are in line with graduate attributes proposed by various higher education institutions, including the University of the Western Cape, Ghana and Nigeria.

Graduates of the courses should be:
  • Inquiry-focused and problem-solving;
  • Critically and relevantly literate, with good analytical skills;
  • Aware of the complexity and inter-connectedness of Public Health system components;
  • Ethically, socially and environmentally aware and active;
  • Autonomous thinkers and actors;
  • Team workers able to work collaboratively with a range of stakeholders;
  • Skilled communicators;
  • Capable leaders;
  • Change strategists and agents;
  • Confident to engage across difference, and able to be flexible in interpersonal relations.

Materials available or becoming available soon

This document introduces three of the resources developed collaboratively at and after the CHEPSAA curriculum development workshops. A course developed earlier, Introduction to Health Policy Analysis, which would also form part of a master’s programme, is already available on the CHEPSAA website. The new resources that are available, or will become available over the next few months are:

  1. An overview and outline for a course entitled Introduction to Complex Health Systems, which is already available on this site.
  2. A set of notes on principles of curriculum development in this field, based on the CHEPSAA experience and discussions in our workshops. This is designed to support colleagues involved in curriculum development in their institutions.
  3. An overview and course outline for a course called Introduction to Health Systems Research and Evaluation.

The course outlines will be followed, by the end of 2013, with the fully-fledged versions of the courses, which will include facilitator notes, tasks and activities, readings, case studies and other resources to support the teaching of the courses. The courses could in future form core modules in a master’s programme, or be offered as stand-alone short courses.

In the pipeline

CHEPSAA partners will also be preparing a discussion document on what a master’s qualification in the field might comprise, in order to stimulate broader thinking on this, with a view to developing a specialist master’s programme in health policy and systems within the next few years, as well as further courses and modules in the field. Particular emphasis will be placed on the development of cases for teaching, which are rooted in the realities of policy implementation and health systems development in African countries.

All these materials will be available on the CHEPSAA website ( which already holds several fully developed courses and case materials under the ‘Teaching materials’ tab.

All CHEPSAA materials are developed as Open Educational Resources under a “creative commons, share alike” licence. For more details go to:

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