Dear Centre Leaders,
Greetings from the INDEPTH Secretariat. We hope you have had a good week.

We have the following items for your attention:

1. African Union Commissioner receives the INDEPTH ED

INDEPTH Network Executive Director, Prof. Osman Sankoh (right) paid a courtesy call on His Excellency, Dr. Mustapha Sidiki Kaloko (left), Africa Union's Commissioner for Social Affairs at AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 12 August 2015.

Dr. Kaloko's Department at the AU is responsible for handling and addressing issues of health, children, drug control, population, migration, labour and employment, sports and culture in the continent.

During the meeting Prof. Sankoh presented the work of the Network of health and demographic surveillance systems in low- and middle-income countries, with majority of them located in Africa.

He said these systems generate high quality population-based data and research that guide especially health policy and planning.
Prof. Sankoh also discussed with the AU Commissioner various avenues for collaboration.

The fact that data play a cross-cutting role across all the AU departments, the AU Commissioner recommended that his colleague commissioners are invited to the INDEPTH Scientific Conference (ISC 2015) to be held in Addis Ababa later this year, so that they can get a clearer picture of INDEPTH's work.

Africa Union Commission is composed of eight commissioners: Commissioner for Peace and Security, Political Affairs; Infrastructure and Energy; Social Affairs; Human Resources, Science and Technology; Trade and Industry; Rural Economy and Agriculture; and Economic Affairs.

Dr. Mustapha Sidiki Kaloko was very instrumental in Africa Union's response to the Ebola Outbreak in West Africa and in pushing Africa’s agenda in the fight against the three deadly diseases: HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.

The African Union spearheads Africa's development and integration in close collaboration with African Union Member States, the Regional Economic Communities and African citizens. Before being appointed Commissioner Dr. Mustapha Sidiki Kaloko served as UNDP Liaison Officer to the African Union. He has also served the Medical Services Directorate of the African Union Commission for over 14 years in various capacities as Physician, Head and Physician Consultant. He has extensive experience of medical practice in Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and England.

2. Key meeting on civil registration held in Addis

A two-day meeting to deliberate on how Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSSs) can contribute to strengthen civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has been held in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa.
During the 11-12 August 2015 meeting, key regional partners finalised a five-year strategy for improving mortality registration and statistics in Africa; and details for a workshop on the training of mortality experts planned for September 2015, to initiate capacity development in Africa.

INDEPTH Network was represented by the Executive Director, Prof. Osman Sankoh.
Prof. Sankoh said at the meeting that INDEPTH member centres have tremendous amount of expertise (demography, public health, epidemiology, health systems, data management, medical doctors, expert coders, use of VA tools, finance managers, field site administrators, policy engagement and communication, statisticians, laboratory personnel, field supervisors etc) that can be tapped for various aspects of CRVS strengthening.

This will include training of trainers on capturing community births and deaths and training on Cause of Death Determination.
Besides INDEPTH, other participants came from WHO, UNICEF,CRVS Centre of Excellence, IDRC, Global Fund and World Bank.
Read more

3. NRF - TWAS Postdoctoral Fellowships Call for 2016

The National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), in partnership with The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), are pleased to announce the call for fellowship applications for the NRF - TWAS Postdoctoral Fellowships for 2016. These fellowships are open to permanent residents from eligible developing countries other than South Africa. Applicants must apply on the NRF Online system at: https://nrfsubmission.nrf.ac.za and follow the application process set out in the attached call document and application guide. The deadline for submission of applications to the host institutions, for approval by Designated Authorities (DAs) is 02 October 2015. Please see attached for details.

4. Scoping reviews and research gap analysis on urban health interventions

Deadline for submission: 24 September 2015, 17:00 CET

Institutions working on urban health and vector-borne disease prevention and control are invited to submit collaborative proposals where two or more institutions are forming a consortium. The proposal will include the production of a series of scoping reviews and the organisation and hosting of an expert consultation/workshop using these reviews to determine research gaps and priorities. Only one institutional consortium proposal will be selected for one year's funding of no more than US$ 150 000.

Complete information and application process available here: http://www.who.int/tdr/grants/en/

5. ISC/AGM 2015 Registration

All sites/centres that have not registered for the ISC 2015 are encouraged to do so.

The ISC will take place from 11 - 13, November 2015 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Arrival: 10 November 2015, Departure : 14 November 2015
Annual General Meeting: 14 November 2015 for Centre Leaders (Departure : 15 November 2015)

The registration link is http://indepth-network.org/isc2015.php
Please note that it is a membership requirement to attend the AGM in Addis Ababa.