Laboratory staff are recognised and valued for their technical skills but managing a national public health laboratory and its staff requires leadership skills that are rarely taught as part of conventional training. As UKHSA’s International Health Regulations Strengthening Project (IHR-SP) laboratory strengthening experts worked with partner countries to deliver technical assistance activities, a need for enhanced leadership skills was quickly identified to ensure technical learnings could be sustainably embedded into organisations and public health systems. This initiated the development of the Public Health Laboratory Leaders programme.

Most recently, working with Africa CDC, the IHR-SP established a programme for Public Health Laboratory Leaders across the continent to facilitate skills development in the areas of laboratory management and leadership. To date, three programmes for laboratory leaders from across Africa have been delivered in Ethiopia (2022), Senegal (2023) and most recently Kenya (2024).

Each programme was delivered as a five-day in-person session that provided participants with a dedicated learning space to explore leadership concepts and apply new knowledge and skills via case study and discussion. An opportunity to create a self-sustaining network of public health laboratory leaders across Africa was also explored.

The IHR-SP was designed for this purpose, for responding to partners’ needs through co-design and co-delivery of strengthening activities with Official Development Assistance (ODA) eligible countries - building sustainable networks by facilitating, enabling conditions for big conversations, and equipping public health leaders to be the best they can be.

Expanding the horizons of the IHR-SP Public Health Laboratory Leaders programme

Beginning in 2018, the Public Health Laboratory Leaders programme has been successfully delivered in Zambia, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and Nigeria. Over time, the content and format have evolved to suit the needs of participants.  Subsequently, a partnership was developed with Africa CDC and the programme was adapted for delivery across the continent. Africa CDC reached out to member states inviting two representative senior laboratory leaders to one of three programmes. 

Since the initiation of the programme across the African continent in 2022, public health laboratory leaders from the following 32 member states have been involved (see image to right); Eswatini, The Gambia, The Republic of South Sudan, Eritrea, Seychelles, Malawi, Liberia, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Zambia, Angola, Benin, Burkina-Faso, Cape Verde, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mozambique, Niger Republic, Senegal, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo and Zimbabwe.

The most recent programme in January 2024 was supported by the Kenyan Ministry of Health and facilitated by Africa CDC and UKHSA colleagues. This programme included representatives from 10 member states, where participants discovered their leadership styles, learned how to deal with difficult conversations, manage conflict in the workplace and understand effective teams in learning modules delivered by IHR-SP workforce development experts. Laboratory technical sessions such as international standards for quality management, risk management, and building a sustainable public health network were led by the IHR-SP laboratory strengthening team.

Feedback from our participants found that the programme objectives and their own expectations were successfully met, and committed to taking forward learnings from the programme, including writing vision statements, consciously leading teams, and institutions, delegating, and resolving workplace disputes. Of note was the expressed intention to cascade the workshops and establish professional networks following the end of the programme. 

Three of the participants shared their thoughts:

“Thank you for allowing me to rediscover my inner self! This has given me inspiration and energy to continue even harder on my leadership journey. Thank you and congratulations to all facilitators.”

“A special thanks to Africa CDC and UKHSA for organising this important training. We have learnt a lot, and this will go a long way in improving the way we lead and manage our institutions.”

“Dear all, may your leadership journey be much empowered! To the facilitators thanks for your passionate delivery of the programme which was a great success!! Fellow lab leaders, ‘if I were you’ I would make sure I keep the leadership book and notes in close reach!”

Throughout the series, the facilitators found a high level of engagement with participants, insights were gained with a real appreciation of institutional and national contexts.

Building sustainability in developing laboratory leadership across the continent

With sustainability in mind, and to ensure the knowledge and skills are shared, the content and learnings from the series of workshops will be used to inform the development of the leadership track of Africa CDC’s ‘African Epidemiology Service’ training programme.  This will be a joint approach taken by Africa CDC, UKHSA IHR-SP, and an enthusiastic delegate from the latest programme, in close collaboration with and contribution from the wider network of participants from the programme series to date.