From 16 to 20 March the East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA-HC) held its 48th Conference of Health Ministers in Swaziland. The theme of the conference was “Strengthening Health Systems to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals”. The Conference was attended by Ministers of Health, Permanent Secretaries, Directors of Health, Programme Managers and bilateral partners to review regional health priorities and identify areas of collaboration. EDCTP’s High Representative Dr Pascoal Mocumbi presented the experiences and expectations from the EDCTP programme under the conference sub-theme “Action-Oriented Research for Health Planning and Decision-making”.

The main recommendations from the session were that research or data collection should be initiated and driven by African countries. Leadership and enabling structures like ethics bodies should be in-built; and where such expertise existed within the ECSA region they should be recognised and be best used. Member states were asked to rely on evidence driven policies and that potential misuse and non-use of research findings should be recognised and addressed accordingly.

About ECSA-HC
ECSA-HC is an inter-governmental regional organisation which was established in 1974 with the mandate to promote and encourage efficiency and relevance in the provision of health services in East, Central and Southern Africa member states. Currently ECSA comprises of 10 member states (Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).