Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Correspondence to: Corrado Cancedda Email: ccancedd gmail. Background: The Rwanda Human Resources for Health Program HRH Program is a 7-year health professional training initiative led by the Government of Rwanda with the goals of training a large, diverse, and competent health workforce and strengthening the capacity of academic institutions in Rwanda. Results: In the first 5 years of the HRH Program, a consortium of US academic institutions has deployed an average of 99 visiting faculty per year to support 22 training programs, which are on track to graduate almost students by The HRH Program has also built capacity within the CMHS by promoting the recruitment of Rwandan faculty and the establishment of additional partnerships and collaborations with the US academic institutions.
Conclusion: The milestones achieved by the HRH Program have been substantial although some challenges persist. These challenges include adequately supporting the visiting faculty; pairing them with Rwandan faculty twinning ; ensuring strong communication and coordination among stakeholders; addressing mismatches in priorities between donors and implementers; the execution of a sustainability strategy; and the decision by one of the donors not to renew funding beyond March Over the next 2 academic years, it is critical for the sustainability of the 22 training programs supported by the HRH Program that the health-related Schools at the CMHS significantly scale up recruitment of new Rwandan faculty.
The HRH Program can serve as a model for other training initiatives implemented in countries affected by a severe shortage of health professionals. Rwanda is a small and densely populated country in sub-Saharan Africa about the size of the state of Maryland in the United States and with a population of approximately 11 million.
A core component of Vision is the establishment of a large, diverse, and competent health workforce. It is to address the health workforce shortage and strengthen the capacity of its health graduate schools that the Government of Rwanda decided to launch the Human Resources for Health Program in Rwanda HRH Program in The primary goal of the HRH Program is to train a large, diverse, and competent health workforce in Rwanda. The HRH Program also seeks to strengthen the capacity of academic institutions in Rwanda to sustain the training programs initiated and supported by the HRH Program by: a increasing the number and competencies of Rwandan faculty; b strengthening the capacity of non-academic domains such as management and administration or equipment and supplies within the Ministry of Health MoH , health-related schools, and teaching hospitals; and c pursuing additional academic partnerships and collaborations between Rwandan academic institutions and US academic institutions Figure 1.
The US academic institutions were selected by the MoH either because they had already been working effectively for years in Rwanda or because they had already expressed an interest in working in Rwanda and had established reputations as leaders in global health for their respective disciplines or clinical specialties. Because the HRH Program follows a tied-aid model, no academic institutions from countries other than the United States have joined the academic consortium since The visiting faculty are deployed to Rwanda for 2 to 12 months each year depending on departmental needs and specialty areas.
