CIET’s ADAPT (African Development of AIDS Prevention Trial capacity) project is funded by the HIV Prevention Trials Capacity Building Grants programme of the Global Health Research Initiative in Canada. The on-going project seeks to develop state-of-the-art, autonomous, and sustainable health measurement and planning resources for African countries to better implement and evaluate HIV and AIDS prevention interventions –a much-needed development in all of Africa.

The centrepiece of the first phase of ADAPT (2007-2009) was nine weeks of intensive training in randomised controlled trials and epidemiology for planning, attended by African researchers, mainly from SADC countries. Participants also gained practical experience through field work between the teaching blocks. To watch a nine-minute VIDEO describing the first course experience, click here.

The second phase of ADAPT, from the end of 2010 to 2014, provides training in evidence-based decision making to parliamentarians, trains a further cohort of African researchers, provides training in laboratory skills, builds capacities in African institutions, and supports development of an open and distance learning Masters in Epidemiology programme.

The programme has created a network of ADAPT alumni in SADC countries, many of whom have continued or extended their work in HIV prevention since their participation in ADAPT. Click here to see profiles of the course alumni.

This work was carried out with support from the Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI), a collaborative research funding partnership of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian International Development Agency, Health Canada, the International Development Research Centre, and the Public Health Agency of Canada.