AMREF Builds Healthy Communities
and Strengthens Health Systems
The Issue
Africa is overwhelmingly rural. Most people live in towns and villages, far away from the capital cities where health services tend to be concentrated. Those who do live in metropolitan areas often live in densely packed slums where health care can be similarly elusive. Acute poverty and chronic poor health make these communities some of the most vulnerable in the world.
Public health policy and planning frequently overlooks the specific needs of communities in favour of a broad-based approach to health care delivery. This is partly out of necessity — effective, far-sighted programmes and services require money and expertise that governments do not always have — and partly because the communities themselves lack the tools to articulate their needs and advocate for their right to good health.
As a result, less than 50% of people in sub-Saharan Africa have access to high-quality, affordable health care or essential medicines.
AMREF's Approach
We work to bring vulnerable communties and the formal health care system closer together. On one hand, we provide people with the education, training, and basic infrastructure to manage their own health and lobby government for better services. On the other, we work with governments to help them deliver health care more effectively, based on our successful programmes and our field research.
We measure our success by how readily governments and communities can adopt our programmes and make them their own. When this happens, we know we’ve made a long-lasting difference.
Projects & Stories
Our Work Mobile Health Care for Kenya's Nomadic Peoples
AMREF continues its innovative work with nomadic peoples in East Africa, training health workers among their communities and establishing new mobile health clinics on their traditional migratory routes. Our work in these inhospitable regions of Ethiopia and Kenya has become increasingly urgent as drought and cattle-raiding make traditional ways of life more difficult.
Our Work Better Disease Management in Central Uganda
Our pilot integrated disease management programme in the Luwero and Kiboga districts of Uganda, a partnership with AstraZeneca, has made it much easier for people to be tested and treated for HIV, TB, and malaria co-infection — one of the deadliest and most overlooked problems in the region.
Our Work Promoting Antiretroviral Treatment in Kenya
Our Zingatia Maisha programme, a partnership with the Kenyan Ministry of Health and GlaxoSmithKline, continued to bring antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS. Adapted to both rural and urban contexts, the programme brings health workers who work with HIV-positive people together with HIV/AIDS support groups, training them and helping them to collaborate better. As a result, more people are receiving ARVs and more people are sticking to their drug regimens.
Photo: Dan Chung/The Guardian