Pericles Lewis, vice president for global strategy and deputy provost for international affairs, visited a health center site in East Shoa, Ethiopia on March 12 in support of the Yale-led Primary Healthcare Transformation Initiative (PTI).

PTI was funded with a three-year, $7.5 million investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and was launched and continues to be led by the Global Health Leadership Initiative (GHLI) at Yale School of Public Health. PTI aims to improve management skills at health posts, health centers, and district health offices around the country. The intent is that improved leadership and governance will lead to improved delivery of evidence-based, high-impact health services including,improved immunization coverage, better access to safe childbirth, and overall decreased mortality.

Since its inception, PTI has seen improvements in management systems at both health center and administrative district levels. Those successes have since led to an expansion of the program to build management capacity at the zonal and regional levels. This expansion will allow PTI to impact 331 districts by the end of 2019, serving a population of 47 million people.

PTI is one of several programs supported by GHLI, which works in over 10 countries to generate cutting-edge research and high-impact educational programs in management, leadership, and organizational performance. Starting in 2006, GHLI began several collaborations with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, regional health bureaus, and leading universities to improve performance at both the hospital and ministry of health levels.

Lewis’ visit is a part of the Yale Africa Initiative (YAI), an ongoing effort by Yale to prioritize and expand upon its collaborations on the continent. Through YAI, Yale continues to leverage the power of partnerships and global networks across the continent to produce remarkable outcomes in science, public health, business, and numerous other disciplines and industry sectors. Lewis’ tour to the PTI site is just one of many events that he and a team from Yale will participate in as they travel to Ethiopia, Uganda, and South Africa this month.

For more information and additional stories about Yale’s partnerships, collaborations, and work throughout Africa, visit our Yale and Africa page here.