In many African countries, both governments and the private sector fail to provide adequate health care and appropriate access to health care services. Thus, the majority of the African population have to bear the financial burden of illness themselves, without access to insurance or other financial assistance. The emerging market for micro health insurance enables low-income or vulnerable groups to enter risk pooling arrangements at affordable costs. It intends to address these concerns and reduce illness-related expenses and poverty. Taking up this issue, the Pro MHI Africa project will improve the institutional, academic and research capacity of universities in Botswana, Ghana, and Malawi. The aim is to develop effective social health-related programmes and to strengthen community-based micro health insurance.

The EU-African university network to strengthen community-based micro health insurance (Pro MHI Africa) will bring together three universities from Africa and one from Europe to design and put into practice a micro health insurance curriculum to improve the knowledge of researchers and students as well as micro health insurance workers and government officials about the functioning of micro health insurance.

Joint research and transfer of know-how

The University of Botswana, the University of Ghana, the University of Malawi, and the University of Cologne, Germany, will pool their knowledge of micro health insurance and share their expertise in this field of health economics. The University of Cologne's extensive experience in the field will constitute a solid background for the project implementation. The project partners will conduct joint research and data analysis on various aspects of micro health insurance in the target countries. In this way, the participating academics will deepen the knowledge necessary for solid teaching. The project will also enable post-graduate and doctoral students to work in an international research project, to write their theses and to jointly develop teaching material, curricula and methodology. Doctoral candidates will attend the "capacity building in research course" and will fully participate in the research period.

Developing curricula and providing assistance to health insurance units

Existing microfinance course modules in the partner universities and knowledge obtained through research will serve as a basis for developing new training modules and curricula in micro health insurance at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Training modules will apply modern teaching methods such as case-based learning and use of multimedia.

Newly developed university training courses and research will also be presented in detail at the partner universities to staff who are not directly involved in the action. This will ensure that the newly obtained knowledge on modern teaching and research methods is institutionally anchored at the universities. Furthermore, the project partners will work closely together with existing micro health insurance units and government officials of the African partner countries. Training modules and courses for consultation and assistance to micro health insurance units and public bodies will be developed. Results of analysis and research will enable participants to give advice to these units in order to stabilise them and improve their outreach to the most disadvantaged areas in Africa.