The regional training centre for the Emergency Medical Teams Initiative in the WHO African Region: a review of the development and progress over the past four years

Boniface Oyugi ^1,2 Lazaro Gilberto Martinez-Monterrey ³ Leilina Ayalew ³ Joseph Chukwudi Okeibunor ^4* Jerry-Jonas Mbasha ⁴ Rashidatu Kamara ⁵ Pryanka Relan ^1* Nahom Tadelle Dessie ⁶ Alegnta Gebreyesus ⁶ Neima Zeynu ⁶ Flavio Salio ¹ Thierno Balde ⁵ Fiona Braka ⁴ Abdou Salam Gueye ⁴

• ¹ World Health Organisation, Emergency Medical Teams Initiative, Headquarters, Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
• ² Centre for Health Services and Clinical Research, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
• ³ World Health Organisation, Country Office, Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia
• ⁴ World Health Organisation, Emergency Preparedness and Response Programme, Regional Office for Africa, Brazzaville Congo, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo
• ⁵ World Health Organisation, Emergency Preparedness and Response Programme, Regional Hub for West Africa, Dakar, Senegal
• ⁶ Ethiopian Emergency Medical Team, Ethiopian Public health Institute (PHEM),, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Background: The WHO and the Ethiopian Ministry of Health (MoH) jointly launched a training centre to enhance the delivery of emergency medical and health services in the continent when faced with humanitarian and other public health emergencies (PHEs). Objective: This paper describes the development and progress of the EMT training centre in the WHO African Region over the past four years and elucidates its implementation processes. Methods: This descriptive retrospective study systematically documents the development and progress of the EMT training centre in the WHO African Region over the past four years. The study utilises the policy cycle framework as an analytical framework focusing on the EMT agenda setting (problem identification), formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation. The concept emerged at the outset of the pandemic, driven by the need to establish a United Nations (UN) field hospital for evacuating UN staff. Addis Ababa was chosen for its strategic location, accessibility, and strong political support. However, the idea evolved into a training centre based on the decision not to include Addis Ababa in the UN staff safe and rapid patient transfer and medical evacuation (medevac) system. Following the scoping mission, the centre's design and the training portfolio were done, and implementation started immediately following the joint official launch by the WHO and Ethiopian MoH. Since implementing the training centre concept, 12 countries in 2022 and 7 in 2023 benefited from different training out of the ten countries prioritised at the onset. Continuous refinement of the procurement has happened throughout the implementation process. In October 2021, a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation framework with indicators and tracking timelines was developed at the inception of the training centre.The future of the centre will not only be limited to EMT but will also serve as a training centre capable of hosting various types of training and technical topics that could be useful, such as training on Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) and the WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) AVoHC-SURGE initiative, simulations, etc.