Woldekidan Amde

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Researcher at University of the Western Cape

Background The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic caused significant morbidity and mortality in Africa, in addition to other socio-economic consequences. Across the continent, Schools of Public Health (SPHs) played several roles in supporting national, regional, and global response to the pandemic. Following a published and grey literature sea...

Institutional capacity for doctoral training is key to addressing the complex challenges facing the global south. In the context of the need for skilled knowledge workers in health systems and growing demand for doctoral places, we reflect on the evolution of a public health doctoral programme in a South African School of Public Health. Through thi...

Background Health and care workers (HCW) faced the double burden of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: as members of a society affected by a public health emergency and as HWC who experienced fear of becoming infected and of infecting others, stigma, violence, increased workloads, changes in scope of practice, among others. To understand the short and long-t...

Background Health and care workers (HCW) faced the double burden of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: as members of a society affected by a public health emergency and as HWC who experienced fear of becoming infected and of infecting others, stigma, violence, increased workloads, changes in scope of practice, among others. To understand the short and long-t...

Background Health worker (HW) retention in the public health sector in Uganda is an enduring health system constraint. Although previous studies have examined the retention of in-service HWs, there is little research focusing on donor-recruited HWs. The objective of this study was to explore drivers of retention of the HIV workforce transitioned fr...

Background Health worker (HW) retention in the public health sector in Uganda is an enduring health system constraint. Although previous studies have examined the retention of in-service HWs, there is little research focusing on donor-recruited HWs with private-sector work backgrounds. The objective of this study was to explore drivers of retention...

Although increasing public spending on health worker (HW) recruitments could reduce workforce shortages in sub-Saharan Africa, effective strategies for achieving this are still unclear. We aimed to understand the process of transitioning HWs from President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to Government of Uganda (GoU) payrolls and to explo...

Although expanding fiscal space for health worker recruitments could reduce workforce shortages in Sub-Saharan Africa, effective strategies for achieving this are still unclear. We aimed to understand the process of transitioning health workers (HWs) from PEPFAR to Government of Uganda (GoU) payrolls and to explore the facilitators and barriers enc...

Background: In-country postgraduate training programme in low and middle income countries are widely considered to strengthen institutional and national capacity. There exists dearth of research about how new training initiatives in public health training institutions come about. This paper examines a south-south collaborative initiative wherein t...

Background: Health systems in sub-Saharan Africa face multifaceted capacity challenges to fulfil their mandates of service provision and governance of their resources. Four academic institutions in Africa implemented a World Health Organisation-funded collaborative project encompassing training, curriculum development, and partnership to strengthe...

Background Health systems in sub-Saharan Africa face multifaceted capacity challenges to fulfil their mandates of service provision and governance of their resources. Four academic institutions in Africa implemented a World Health Organisation-funded collaborative project encompassing training, curriculum development, and partnership to strengthen...

Background Health systems in sub-Saharan Africa face multifaceted capacity challenges to fulfil their mandates of service provision and governance of their resources. Four academic institutions in Africa implemented a World Health Organisation-funded collaborative project encompassing training, curriculum development, and partnership to strengthen...

Background Health systems in sub-Saharan Africa face multifaceted capacity challenges to fulfil their mandates of service provision and governance of their resources. Four academic institutions in Africa implemented a World Health Organisation-funded collaborative project encompassing training, curriculum development, and partnership to strengthen...

Background Health systems in sub-Saharan Africa face multifaceted capacity challenges to fulfil their mandates of service provision and governance of their resources. Four academic institutions in Africa implemented a WHO-funded collaborative project encompassing training, curriculum development, and partnership to strengthen national leadership an...

Background: Studies show that sexual and gender minorities have unique health care needs and encounter complicated problems to access health services. Drawing on the intersectionality approach, this paper examines the intersecting factors that determine health care seeking behaviour and utilization of health care services among Lesbians, Gays and...

Background: The paper examines external multiple job holding practices in public health training institutions based in prominent public universities in three sub-Saharan Africa countries (Rwanda, Ethiopia, Mozambique). Objective: The study aims to contribute to broadening understanding about multiple job holding (nature and scale, drivers and reaso...

The importance of health policy and systems research and analysis (HPSR+A) is widely recognised. Universities are central to strengthening and sustaining the HPSR+A capacity as they teach the next generation of decision-makers and health professionals. However, little is known about the capacity of universities, specifically, to develop the field....

Introduction: Health systems in many low-income countries remain fragile, and the record of human resource planning and management in Ministries of Health very uneven. Public health training institutions face the dual challenge of building human resources capacity in ministries and health services while alleviating and improving their own capacity...

The importance of health policy and systems research and analysis (HPSR+A) is widely recognized. Universities are central to strengthening and sustaining the HPSR+A capacity as they teach the next generation of decision-makers and health professionals. However, little is known about the capacity of universities, specifically, to develop the field....

Woldekidan Kifle Amde in chapter 16 investigates the gender divide in uptake and usage of ICT in Ethiopia. He finds that gender roles and relations, which are considered by many as normal and transmitted through socialisation, also pervade ICT. A range of cultural barriers hinder optimum usage of ICT by women including harassment, work overload, ge...

The vulnerability of youth to HIV infection, defined by the United Nations and the World Bank as persons between the ages of 15 and 24 years (World Bank 2011), has been receiving greater attention recently after years of neglect (UNAIDS 2012, pp. 26–28). The fact that nearly half of all new HIV infections worldwide occur in this age group indicates...

Tradition, religion, and culture are interrelated and overlapping concepts. Social scientists in general and anthropologists in particular have given numerous definitions of culture. Of all the definitions offered by different scholars, Edward Tylor’s is among the most widely accepted. Tylor defined culture as that broader reality that comprises a...

In 2006, all UN member states made a commitment at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS to sharply scale up their HIV/AIDS responses and provide universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support services by 2010 (WHO 2007). Largely due to the subsequent massive rollout of antiretroviral treatment (ART), the...

There were 14.8 million children orphaned by AIDS living in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2009, an increase from 8.9 million in 2001. Nearly 60% of these orphans lived in the high-prevalence countries of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia (UNAIDS 2010, p. 186). The surge in the number of children who lost either...