Dear Colleagues

Welcome to the 2nd AFREhealth Symposium in Durban, South Africa from 6th to 8th August 2018. This year's theme, “Towards Achieving Universal Health Coverage in Africa - Creating Synergies and Capacity through Education, Research and Quality Health Services”, reflects one of Africa's priority goals. The increasing gap in income, health and education between the poor and middle class, and the rich, continues to grow and threatens to undermine the gains in development Africa has seen over the last few decades. Sub-themes include Training Health Professionals for Universal Health Coverage; Building Health Research Capacity in Africa for UHC; Achieving the SDGs and the 90-90-90 targets for HIV/AIDS; Financing health care in Africa; and North-South & South-South partnerships for health system development. This Symposium brings together leaders from academia, NGOs, funders, the private sector and government.

It’s an exciting time for AFREhealth as we continue to grow and adapt, remaining always adaptable, motivated and responsive to the priority health issues in Africa for research and education of different health care professionals, striving towards quality of care and health systems improvement. Health care in Africa is facing many challenges and changes as we strive towards the achievement of the SDGs and implementation of Universal Health Care. It is an exciting area in which to work, research and collaborate, and we’ll continue to meet and bring inspired people together in forums like this, to ensure that AFREhealth remains at the forefront of capacity development and research production.

I’d like to encourage each of you to participate fully in this Symposium and bring your expertise to our gathering. You, as established and emerging leaders, have the vision, the knowledge, the wherewithal and the experience to help Africa pave its way into the future. I encourage you to engage and network with established leaders in the field, but also with emerging researchers, so that we can ensure that we grow the next generation of African leaders. I hope you leave here with lots of ideas, and contacts, and that you are energized by the work that is happening in our continent.

Thank you all for being here. Thank you also to the number of funders that made this Symposium possible. I would also like to thank my team for all the hard work they put in to make this event possible.

Fatima Suleman
Chair: Local Organization Committee
2nd AFREhealth Symposium