Extension of Deadline for Abstracts Submission

The African Health Economics & Policy Association (AfHEA) is extending the deadline for submission of individual abstracts for the upcoming March 2022 conference to October 31, 2021. The deadline for submission of proposals for organised sessions remains unchanged: October 31, 2021.

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Extension of Deadline for Abstracts Submission

The African Health Economics & Policy Association (AfHEA) is extending the deadline for submission of individual abstracts for the upcoming March 2022 conference to October 31, 2021. The deadline for submission of proposals for organised sessions remains unchanged: October 31, 2021.

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Call for Applications for Executive Director of AfHEA

The Board of Trustees of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) hereby invites applications from qualified candidates to apply for the position of Executive Director (ED) of AfHEA. This is a part-time position with a commitment requirement of about 2 days per week (0.4 FTE), sometimes outside normal working hours (evenings and weekends).

Although AfHEA’s head office is located in Accra, Ghana, the ED is not required to be resident in or relocate to Ghana, but can work from elsewhere in Africa with support from a capable staff based in Accra. Kindly note that AfHEA does not make payments for relocation or provide expatriate benefits of any kind.

The Executive Director reports to the Chair of the Board of Trustees and is responsible for providing leadership and direction to the Association including oversight over staff and ensuring efficient use of AfHEA’s resources.

The Executive Director is also the head of the Executive Committee, which together with the Secretariat, is in charge of the day-to-day running of the Association’s affairs. Other members of the Executive Committee include: up to 3 Deputy Directors, Secretary, Assistant Secretary, and Membership Secretary. The Director of Operations and the Finance and Accounting Officer are both ex-officio members of the executive committee.

Main duties and responsibilities of the Executive Director

Strategic guidance, oversight and accountability

• Undertake initiatives and activities pursuant to the aims and objectives of the Association,
• Oversee the execution of the policies and resolutions of the General Assembly as guided by AfHEA’s governance structures
• Guide the design, oversight and accountability of AfHEA’s business strategies, plans and budgets and their approval by the Board
• Assist in setting goals for performance, growth, sustainability and self-sufficiency for the association
• Recommend appointments to the Board of Trustees for any Executive Committee position that becomes vacant, or otherwise as the need arises

Management functions

• Supervise, directly or indirectly, all other officers of the Association and hold them to account in the performance of their duties through clear performance appraisals and supportive supervision

Resource mobilization and financial management

• Maintain overall responsibility for the financial management and administration of the Association in collaboration with the Director of Operations
• Promote fundraising ventures and build and manage relationships with partners including donors in collaboration with AfHEA board, executive committee and Director of Operations

Oversight and guidance for statutory meetings of AfHEA

• Work with Board of Trustee leadership to prepare for board meetings and attend Board meetings in an ex-officio capacity
• Convene meetings of the Executive Committee on a regular basis
• Oversight for the planning and convening of AfHEA’s Scientific Conferences in collaboration with the Board and designated committees

Strategic Partnerships and external engagements

• Proactively support new and existing strategic partnerships for AfHEA to advance brand visibility in collaboration with the Board, Executive Committee and membership
• Represent the Association externally for any lawful purpose

Others

• Undertake any further tasks that may be assigned by the Board, as may be required

Candidate profile

• Advanced degree in Health Economics, Health Policy or relevant field with 10 years+ work experience in Africa.
• Proven experience managing NGO operations, membership associations or other similar roles
• Access to a strong network of health economists and health policy makers across Africa
• Demonstrable proficiency in the underlisted core competencies:
  • organizational and leadership abilities,
  • strategic planning,
  • business development,
  • strategic partnerships for common shared values,
  • team cohesion,
  • clear decision-making and problem-solving, including conflict resolution
  • professional integrity and workplace ethics,
• Understanding of business functions such as Human Resource, financial management, marketing etc.
• Track record of successful fundraising activities and resource mobilization with public and private sector entities
• Experience working with Boards of Trustees
• Excellent interpersonal and public speaking skills
• Fluency in English and French is preferred

Application requirements

Candidates must submit a curriculum vitae in English or French together with a motivation statement (not more than two pages) clearly stating why they are interested in the position and how they meet the requirements of the candidate profile.

All applications should be sent to the following email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The deadline for submission of applications is: October 22, 2021.

The successful candidate is expected to take office on April 1, 2022, but will be required to understudy the outgoing executive director during a transition period not exceeding three months. 

Health Economics Association of Cameroon (HEAC) joins AfHEA as Institutional Member

Health Economics Association of Cameroon (HEAC) joins AfHEA as Institutional Member

The Health Economics Association of Cameroon (HEAC), which was formed in 2020, has recently joined the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) as an institutional member. Leadership of the association noted that they see AfHEA as a mother organization and they were looking forward to be nurtured by AfHEA to grow and function effectively and deliver on its objectives. Dr Kinga Bertila leads the association as the Chairperson of HEAC. The Vice Chair is Dr Promise Aseh Muteh while the General Secretary is Dr  Mercy A. Mbacham Tah-Monunde.

AfHEA information for HEAC

Health Economics Association of Cameroon (HEAC)

Association d'Economie de la Santé de Cameroun

About the Health Economics Association of Cameroon

The Health Economics Association of Cameroon (HEAC) is a bilingual (English and French), Non-Profit, Non-Governmental and Non-Partisan Association governed by Law No. 90/53 of 19^th December 1990 governing the creation of associations in Cameroon. It was created in December 2020 and officially launched on the 15^th of March 2021 in the headquarters in  Bamenda, Cameroon.  The overall mission of HEAC is to promote the activities of Health Economists in Cameroon  through the promotion of efficient, effective and equitable use of health resources in Cameroon in particular and Africa and the World at large. Its membership includes over 50 Health Economics, and Health experts from Cameroon resident within and outside the continent.

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AfHEA 2022 Conference Announcement and Call for Abstracts

The African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) is pleased to invite experts, analysts, practitioners and researchers in the relevant health fields to submit abstracts for the sixth Scientific Conference to be held in Kigali, Rwanda in March 2022. The exact dates will be announced in due course. 

Due to the challenges posed by the covid-19 pandemic, the conference will adopt a hybrid format where some delegates will be onsite in Kigali, and others will join virtually.

Theme and sub-themes

The broad theme of the conference is: Towards Resilient Health Systems in Africa: The Role of Health Economics and Policy Research.

The sub-themes of the conference are:

1. Decolonizing Health Economics and policy research and the drive for greater equity and inclusion.
2. Vaccine economics: equity, distribution, financing, trade and the lessons learnt during the covid-19 pandemic.
3. What adjustments are required to make health and health financing systems in Africa more resilient to pandemics?
4. Cost-effectiveness of addressing social/underlying determinants of poor health vs. funding medical interventions.
5. Building back better health systems: the role of innovation, multi-sectoral approaches and global financial architecture in building resilient health systems in Africa.
6. UHC, politics, policy processes, and reforms during covid-19 pandemic.
7. The role and use of data and evidence for policy decisions in a pandemic (the case of covid-19).
8. Looking to the future: what plans are in place to mitigate the impact of covid-19 post the pandemic?

Health Economics, Public Health and Health Policy researchers in particular are encouraged to submit abstracts on this broad theme and its sub-themes or indeed on any other interesting, innovative, or topical African health sector or systems research which upon selection by our scientific committee may be presented orally or in poster format at the conference.

Proposals for organised sessions

Proposals for organized sessions are also invited from interested individuals or institutions.

An organized session must have a session organizer, who will describe the overall session in the session abstract, and a maximum of five individual abstracts describing the individual presentations of the session, as per the organized session structure described further below.

Please note, however, that we do not accept proposals for plenary sessions.

Language and structure of abstracts

Abstracts may be submitted in English or French and must be structured as follows:

Structure of individual abstracts

• Title of paper
• Name, institutional affiliation, phone number and e-mail address of presenting author
• Names of co-authors
• 400-word maximum structured abstract in plain text or MS Word format (PDFs will be rejected), which indicates the background, aims and objectives of the research, the methods used, the key findings and the main conclusion(s). Abstracts submitted in MS Word must be in Times New Roman, font size 12.

Authors should submit individual abstracts online https://afhea.confex.com/afhea/2022/cfp.cgi no later than September 30, 2021.

Structure of proposals for organized sessions

• Title of organized session
• Principle organizer (Name, institutional affiliation, phone number and email address)
• Co-organizers (Names, institutional affiliations and email addresses)
• Session abstract: 400-word maximum structured abstract in MS Word format (PDFs will be rejected) that provides a summary of the session
• Abstract of each paper (max 400 words in plain text or MS Word format): should include the aims and objectives of the paper and the key findings (do not include annexes). The maximum number of papers allowed for each session is 5. Abstracts submitted in MS Word must be in Times New Roman, font size 12.  

The proposals for organized sessions should be submitted online https://afhea.confex.com/afhea/2022/cfp.cgi

The deadline for submission of proposals for organized sessions is October 31, 2021.

Note that there are different online submission forms for individual and organized session abstracts and the correct form must be used.

All abstracts submitted will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee.

Review process

To ensure a high scientific standard of the presentations at the conference, a quality assurance process which is consistent with the capacity building goal of AfHEA will be used in the review of abstracts.

Reviewed abstracts will be categorised as follows:

• Accept category: abstracts that meet all the set criteria and for which the reviewers have no doubt about their high standard
• Revise category: abstracts that can be markedly improved after addressing comments given by reviewers or for which the scientific committee judges that there is not enough basis from the abstract alone to make a firm determination of the likely suitability and quality of the final presentation.
• Reject category: abstracts that do not meet the set criteria and which reviewers find are of a low standard

 This categorization ensures that junior researchers, whose abstracts would otherwise be rejected, benefit from a mentorship process (described below) and hence an opportunity to present a quality paper in an international conference. The quality of the presentation of studies whose abstracts fall into the ‘Revise category’ will be improved through the following QA process:

• Mentorship support (virtual and face-to-face) will be offered to junior researchers to help improve their abstracts and presentations.
• Presenters will be required to submit their draft PPT presentations, before the conference, for review by the reviewers. Reviewed abstracts and presentations will be returned to presenters by January 15, 2022.
• Such authors may further be asked to make mock presentations on the first day of the conference (before the conference sessions begin).

This process is consistent with AfHEA’s goal of capacity building for junior colleagues.

Participation in the mentorship and revision processes is voluntary but AfHEA reserves the right to reject an abstract outright should the author(s) refuse to take advantage of the above quality assurance process.

The abstract submissions received for the conference (individual and organized sessions) will inform the organization of the parallel sessions and AfHEA reserves the right to determine the technical composition of those sessions. Applicants for individual abstracts will be notified of reviewers’ decision on their abstracts by November 30, 2021 while applicants of organized sessions will be notified no later than November 30, 2021.

Summary of key dates