Detailed Mechanism Funding and Narrative

Years of mechanism: 2011 2012 2013

Details for Mechanism ID: 9832
Country/Region: South Africa
Year: 2013
Main Partner: American International Health Alliance
Main Partner Program: HIV--AIDS Twinning Center
Organizational Type: NGO
Funding Agency: HHS/HRSA
Total Funding: $875,000

The Twinning Center is a PEPFAR-supported American International Health Alliance (AIHA) program that effectively and rapidly supports local capacity to train needed Human Resources for Health (HRH) and strengthens health related institutional systems. The Twinning Center will support the development of various health professions education programs, including Clinical Associates, a new cadre of mid-level health workers to provide HIV and AIDS prevention, care and treatment as well as other public health services, particularly in rural areas. This program will contribute to the objectives of the USG-SAG Partnership Framework. The program will provide a needed infusion of HRH, facilitating deployment of HRH needed to support PHC re-engineering. Geographic coverage is national as Clinical Associates and other supported cadres will be trained and deployed throughout the country, and target populations include rural populations and HIV-positive people and their families. Resources will be targeted to programs with greatest need, and US partners will donate significant in-kind contributions. The program will strengthen programs at South African universities which are fully supported with local funds, and staff posts will be created at DOH so graduates have places to work in facilities throughout the country, ensuring local ownership. The program will support M&E efforts at all universities to document the quality of training and the impact of graduates on the South African health system.

Funding for Health Systems Strengthening (OHSS): $875,000

In FY12 the Twinning Center will develop the capacity of South African universities to train Clinical Associates and other cadres, contributing to the overall PEPFAR goal of deploying 140,000 additional healthcare workers into the field (±13,000 in South Africa), and addressing the shortage of 83,043 health workers as identified in the NDoH Human Resource Strategy for the Health Sector. The program will continue twinning partnerships linking the three universities currently training Clinical Associates (UP, Wits and WSU) with US universities training physician assistants (Arcadia, Emory and Colorado). The partnerships will focus on improving the quality of the programs through curriculum development, faculty development, quality improvement, etc. while scaling up student enrollment where possible. The Twinning Center will establish additional twinning partnerships linking South African universities launching new Clinical Associates programs (Stellenbosch, UFS and UKZN are considering starting the program) with selected US universities training physician assistants. Adding new programs will increase the student pipeline. The twinning partnerships will leverage significant in-kind contributions of professional time and other resources from US partners.

The Twinning Center will continue to support the Clinical Associates Forum of all participating South African universities to collaborate on cross-cutting issues that affect the establishment and sustainability of the profession. The Forum will address needs related to professional association building, advocacy, career pathing, student assessment, volunteer preceptors, data collection and coordinated research. The Forum will provide the South African universities with the opportunity to meet and discuss best practices and lessons learned, and coordinate strategies for the future of the programs and the profession. The Twinning Center will support national mechanisms to address issues crucial to the success of the Clinical Associates profession, including establishment of public health posts for graduates; administrative, financial and human resource management for the new profession; and proper orientation and introduction of graduates to management and healthcare teams in district hospitals. The Twinning Center will facilitate regular national coordinating meetings for DOH, participating universities, and other stakeholders to address these and other issues in support of the introduction of this new cadre of health worker in South Africa.

The Twinning Center will provide direct technical assistance to the Clinical Associate program. Through its Volunteer Healthcare Corps (VHC) mechanism, US experts will be deployed on mid-to-long term field assignments to conduct courses/training for Clinical Associates and provide mentoring to local staff to increase their capacity to teach and support the program. The Twinning Center will direct efforts to increase access to online and offline information resources (including clinical practice guidelines) for faculty and students, and provide training to ensure that students improve information literacy and IT skills and utilize the available evidence to inform their studies and practice. Twinning partnerships, VHC experts, and information resources support may be implemented in support of initiatives for other cadres of health workers, such as pharmacists, pharmacy assistants and pharmacy technicians.

Subpartners Total: $0
Emory University: NA
University of Colorado: NA
University of Pretoria: NA
University of the Witwatersrand: NA
Walter Sisulu University: NA
Cross Cutting Budget Categories and Known Amounts Total: $875,000
Human Resources for Health $875,000