Africa and Asia Science communications specialists meet in Durban/South Africa

MARCAD Communication Officer, Kodou Sene, has attended the 2nd Africa-Asia Communications Forum (AACF) from 22nd to 25th January at the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI), University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

The meeting organized by the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) and Sub-Saharan African Network for TB/HIV Research Excellence (SANTHE) brought together over 30 science communication specialists from several research programmes funded by Wellcome Trust across Africa and Asia continent.

The 2nd Africa-Asia Communications Forum (AACF) main objective is to strengthen the attendees capacity and skills in communication and to provide a common platform to encourage the communications skills exchanges and regular collaboration between them in order to promote their researchers' study results and stories more easily and regularly.
The three-day Communications Forum were punctuated by a very rich program. The participants benefited from various sessions in media and public engagement, storytelling and science communication (including in languages other than English), photography, pitching stories to media and measuring results.

Others attendees were from African Academy of Sciences (AAS), HIV-Vac Network, MLW (Malawi), DELGEME (Mali), KEMRI-Wellcome and IDeAL (Kenya), WACCBIP (Ghana), Afrique One-Aspire (Côte d’Ivoire), CIDRI-Africa and Arting Health for Impact (RSA), Oxford Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Wellcome Trust/DBT India-Alliance, MORU, THRiVE Consortium and MUII Plus (Uganda), SSACAB, African Population & Health Research Centre (APHRC), OUCRU, Wellcome (UK) and AMARI (Ethiopia, RSA, Malawi, Zimbabwe).

The first Africa Asia Communications Forum (AACF) was held in 2017 in London.