A group of 22 researchers and planners from 12 countries in Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) completed a three week intensive training in Gaborone, Botswana (1-19 September 2014). Together with a further three week block in April 2015, this covers the credits required for a McGill Family Medicine Certificate in planning, management, education and research in primary health care.

Focussed on the regional priority, HIV prevention, the training is provided by CIET and McGill Family Medicine, with faculty led by Drs Neil Andersson, Anne Cockcroft and Sergio Paredes. Dr Howard Bergman, Chair of Family Medicine at McGill, visited the course (see picture).

The three week intensive training was supported by CIET’s ADAPT (African Development of AIDS Prevention Trial capacities) program, funded by the Canadian Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI). GHRI is a research funding partnership composed of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR); Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD), and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). ADAPT also included training of Botswana Members of Parliament to interpret evidence for health policy making, an experience recently reported in Science (Legislators learning to interpret evidence for policy. Science 2014; 345: 1244-1245).

The training of SADC planners and researchers is supported for two more years, including translation into Portuguese and French and launch of an online modality, from the SADC HIV fund.