NAPHI was created to strengthen all levels of public health training in Africa for all categories of public health personnel by facilitating exchanges between African public health institutions. The history of NAPIE spans five years and three meetings from its conceptualization in Brazzaville in June 1990, its constitutionalization in Douala in December 1992, to its realization in Brazzaville in October 1995 when a bilingual Executive Committee' was elected and a framework for networking and international cooperation was developed. The Secretariat, once housed at WHO/AFRO in Brazzaville, will be located at the Faculty of Medicine of Makerere University.

NAPHI's stated mission is "to improve the health status of the African people by contributing to the development, implementation and evaluation of innovative, community-based public health interventions throughout member country institutions of training, research and service.

NAPHI will "allow us to do together what we cannot readily accomplish alone." Specifically the Network will:

- facilitate communication between institutions offering a mechanism for consultation and information dissemination

- facilitate South to South assistance and cooperation through the exchange of the faculty and students, training materials and methods, and research protocols

- disseminate new educational technologies such as computer-assisted teaching

- offer a potential venue for reciprocal accreditation among member institutions develop a database of human resources and courses available in the member African public health institutions highlighting their areas of expertise

- establish mechanisms for fund raising

Additional functions proposed include:

- offer a venue for the joint development of evaluation indicators and methodology

- influence regional health policy on timely issues such as health system reform, decentralization, health financing and health training reform

 

- establish a Secretariat

- fund raising

- conduct a capacity assessment of member institutions

-plan collaborative research in regional priority areas such as nutrition, disaster relief, and reproductive health

- organize short courses in priority areas, i.e., management, epidemiology and social sciences

- establish partnerships with other networks such as PHSWOW and INCLEN increase membership to 20 institutions.