Nursing Education Partnership Initiative (NEPI) program is the program which is aiming at strengthening clinical skills targeting pre-service nursing programs in six countries in ECSA region including Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa and Zambia. Considering the mission and mandate of ECSACON in strengthening the contribution of frontline health workers nurses and midwives in towards delivery of quality health care services it stands as the regional partner in supporting the work of NEPI project in the ECSA region.
The Summit was hosted by ICAP at Columbia University, the 2014 NEPI Summit brought together representatives from the 19 NEPI supported nursing and midwifery schools, the NEPI Advisory Groups including representatives from the Ministries of Health and Ministries of Higher Education, Nursing Councils and Associations, US Government , nursing education leadership from Sub-Saharan Africa , Non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) from the larger regional and international nursing and midwifery community and other donors.
The objectives of the 2014 NEPI Summit wereto;
- Communicate the contributions of NEIPI on the production, quality and relevance of nurses and midwives to address essential population health needs and strengthening and sustaining a strong HIV prevention, care and treatment response.
- Share innovative models and practices for health workforce recruitment , education and retention in low resource settings
- Review models for sustainability and long-term growth of pre-service nursing and midwifery programs and relevant models from the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI)
- Identify ways to increase inter-professional collaboration between PEPFAR-funded education initiatives.
ECSACON represented by the Senior Program officer Alphonce Kalula was granted an opportunity to share college experience in supporting pre-service nursing education towards meeting AIDS- Free Generation goal. In addition to that, the college was able to share experience in mounting online the online Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Library which was recently launched and mounted in ECSACON website (www.ecsacon.org) to increase learning accessthrough online platform. It was an opportune time for marketing the library through that forum as recently ICAP has granted permission to ECSACON to host the Option B+ module and ECSACON is certifying the candidates who have gone through that module.
During the opening of the summit a number of presenters had opportunity to stress on key issues to guide the interaction and stimulate discussion. Among the speakers was Wafaa El-Sadr the Director of ICAP who emphasized on the ICAP mission of ensuring the wellness of families and communities by strengthening health systems around the world. Another prominent speaker was Harold Phillips from U.S Department of Health and Human Services who stressed on the importance of maintaining partnerships in reaching AIDS-Free Generation target siting the example of Nursing Education Partnership Initiative (NEPI) and Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI).
The key note address was delivered by John Palen from The U. S. Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) which is leading implementation of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In his remarks he shared the global AIDS situation before PEPFAR came into being and the milestones attained so far. In his remarks he also shared the new PEPFAR agendas and priorities for achieving and AIDS-Free Generation which emphasize on Impact,Sustainability, Partnership, Efficiency and Human Rights. He went further to provide the contextual meaning of sustainability as far as PEPFAR is concerned as indicated in the quote below;
“Being sustainable means that countries have affordable, quality, locally owned (managed, implemented and funded) HIV/AIDS services and programs.”
Ambassador Birx
ECSACON reiterated its commitment to continue availing support towards sustaining the achievements gained so far and disseminate the innovations demonstrated by NEPI project in bridging the gap between theory and clinical skills to other ECSACON countries.
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