Harnessing Capacity in Southern Africa to Support and Develop Human Resources for Nursing and Midwifery in Africa: Part 1 Project Description

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Project on Nursing and Midwifery Education in Africa is designed to respond to critical health skill concerns and a pledge made by the Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) in Uganda in 2010 (AU 2010). Ten years later, the State of the World’s Nursing Report (SoWN) (WHO 2020) estimates a shortage of 5.9 million nurses, with the greatest gap (89%) found in low- and lower middle-income countries. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relating to health and well-being, World Health Organisation (WHO) member states would have to educate enough nurses to eliminate global shortages and to meet changing healthcare needs. In low- and lower middle-income countries, addressing nursing shortages requires an average increase in the number of graduates of 8.8% per year from 2018 to 2030 and an uptake of at least 70% into the workforce. The production and uptake burden facing southern Africa is a double-edged sword; a project such as this attempts to address this dual burden by adopting a novel approach to build nursing and midwifery capacity that espouses the values of collaboration, self-reliance and humanness.  In this paper, we report on South-South collaboration as one of the strategies to develop nursing and midwifery education in the context and challenges of universities in southern Africa. The paper outlines the principles and values of the project; rooted in Ubuntu as a theoretical framework, it articulates the project vision, goals, objectives and implementation methodology, concluding with the profile of six NEPAD projects.