Mali healthcare professionals training support project – DECLIC

Results achieved as of March 2016 include the following: (1) 36 students (including 11 female students) are currently being trained with a view to obtaining their diploma of specialized studies (DES) in family medicine and community medicine, accredited since 2012 and officially offered by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bamako. All students are trained using the skills-based approach (SBA) and have all completed rotational internships at the university community health centres (UCHCs) set up as part of the project; (2) All 15 National Health Sciences Training Institute (INFSS) programs and the 18 DES programs of the Faculty of Medicine have been reviewed and use the SBA; (3) The 538 INFSS teachers (76 of whom are permanent and 462 of whom are on contract) received training and give courses using the SBA; (4) 1,420 students (more than 50% of whom are female) are trained at the INFSS. (5) Five UCHCs located in Banconi, Ségué, Koniakary, Sikasso and Konobougou have been rehabilitated and provided with medical equipment, a public address system for the consultation room and an Internet connection) in accordance with required standards, and are all operational; (6) The members of the community health associations (CHAs) of the five UCHCs received training to strengthen their management and social mobilization capacities; (7) An exchange network was set up to enable the five CHAs to conduct exchanges using information technologies, including the Internet; (8) Several meetings were held with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Higher Education and the deanship in order to raise awareness with regard to the government assuming responsibility for scholarships- and enrolment fees for the DES/community health students; (9) The framework agreement signed between the Faculty of Medicine, the INFSS, the CHAs of the UCHCs greatly improved cooperation between these entities in implementing the project; (10) The UCHCs considered to be models provide quality services for people and serve as student internship and training locations; (11) The SBA is used by education and health officials to train INFSS and DES/community health students.