At its mid-term, Afrique One-ASPIRE is on the right way. The progress achieved by the programme from 2016 to date were appreciated by its funders at the 3^rd annual meeting of the Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science (DELTAS Africa) programme. The event was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 9-11 July 2018. This year’s event theme is, The View from Halfway, in line with the focus on the Mid-Term Review being conducted to assess the progress of the five-year DELTAS Africa programme.

Some Afrique One-ASPIRE’s achievements

In terms of training and capacity building, Afrique One-ASPIRE recruited 58 fellows on 38 planned from 11 African countries. 38% of them are female and 47%, francophone. Indeed, in its recruitment strategy, the programme tried to get the gender balance and bridge the gap between anglophone and francophone. Additionally, Afrique One-ASPIRE offered 14 courses complementary courses and clinical trial to 284 trainees and trained around 5000 people on ‘One Health’ through a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC).

Regarding the science, Afrique One-ASPIRE has 68 Publications with 14 in first authors (45% females/14) in open access and impact factor such as Nature, BMC Infect. Diseases, etc. 13,037,940 US$ is the amount of additional grants mobilized. Furthermore, Afrique One-ASPIRE contributed to the elaboration of the roadmap for zoonotic tuberculosis and assessed of the rabies burden in Côte d’Ivoire.

Another remarkable point of Afrique One-ASPIRE is its engagement to liaise its activities with the public. ‘Afrique One-ASPIRE allocated the highest percentage of scientific and citizenship budget to community and public engagement’, said Lillian Mutengu, Public engagement officer of African Academy of Sciences during her presentation at the event.