The Southern Africa Human Capacity Development Coalition

Countries in Southern Africa have some of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the world, but human resources to address the epidemic are often limited in numbers, training, and logical distribution. The Southern Africa Human Capacity Development (SA-HCD) Coalition is working to improve the delivery of HIV/AIDS services by strengthening the capacity of health workers, policy-makers and planners, program managers, educational faculties and institutions, communities, and families. The Coalition works in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Malawi, and Swaziland.

To foster a strong, coordinated response to HIV/AIDS among Southern African organizations, the Coalition provides technical assistance and evaluates and shares promising practices and successful models for strengthening human resources for health. Technical assistance by the local and regional African organizations within the Coalition addresses the human capacity crisis by improving workforce planning and use, enhancing health worker skills, and strengthening systems to support health worker performance. The program markets coalition organizations to governments and HIV/AIDS initiatives, encouraging the participation of African regional networks and institutions in combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Building on the IntraHealth-led Capacity Project's work in Southern Africa, SA-HCD works to initiate national-level activities, including:

  • Establishing country-level human capacity development alliances for strategy development and leadership; these alliances will act as a bridge between the SA-HCD Coalition and subcoalitions, helping to ensure country-level buy-in and ownership of human capacity development strengthening initiatives and outcomes
  • Gathering information and analyzing the country's human resources situation, including gaps in health services and projection of future needs where possible
  • Developing related strategies and plans for advocacy, information-sharing, knowledge management, communications, capacity-building of national organizations, and monitoring and evaluation
  • Expanding participation to stakeholders such as district health managers and other local government authorities, representatives of community-based organizations, and key health education and service site facilities
  • Monitoring progress, assessing results, and sharing successful models and lessons learned.

This four-year program is funded by USAID. IntraHealth's partners in the program include the East, Central, and Southern Africa (ECSA) Health Community, the Foundation for Professional Development, the Council of Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa, and Management Sciences for Health (MSH).

For more information, please download the brochure. 

Contact: Mubita Lifwatila, Acting Chief of Party
Mail: PO Box 1655, Brooklyn Square, Pretoria, South Africa 0075