Project Background

From February 12-14, 2014, The University of Michigan Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology hosted the meeting “Building Academic Partnerships to train 1000+ OBGYNs in sub-Saharan Africa” in Accra, Ghana. This meeting was generously funded by both the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Flora Family Foundation.

The purpose of this meeting was to bring together OBGYNs from academic institutions in both high and low resource countries in sub-Saharan Africa, along with professional support organizations, policy makers, and funders to discuss the ways to increase obstetric capacity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

We discussed ways of creating or improving mutually beneficial academic partnerships to increase post graduate training in OBGYN. The overall goal is to reduce maternal and neonatal morbidity, mortality, and obstetric fistula in SSA.

Outcomes

Outcomes of the meeting included:

• Development of country plans for improving OBGYN training
• The creation of a Consortium of African Academic OBGYNs
• Creation of a Consortium of North American/European OBGYN departments
• Creation of a Consortium of organizations to support OBGYN training, certification, research and service

The core participants of the meeting were made up of country teams, which included a US academic representative, an African representative, a Ministry of Health representative, and a Ministry of Education representation from 14 sub-Saharan African countries. Other invitees represented professional and support organizations.