Scientists for Health and Research for Development (SHARED)
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Dear Dieter,
I think AFRONETS is an excellent opportunity to get feed back on the SHARED
initiative. I will soon post a longer description of the action on
AFRONETS, but I have to run it by my colleagues first.
Essentially SHARED (Scientists for Health and Research for Development) is
initially a database-type action with a lot of potential applications. It
aims at knowing "what everybody is doing and where" in the field of Health
with strong focus on Southern problems. The SHARED website will soon open
and will obviously be announced at AFRONETS.
It seeks to get information not only on research projects, but notably also
from projects on health financed by traditional donors or by the
governments of the countries themselves.
In the future we hope that this will lead in some instances to better
synergy between those two (usually quite isolated) approaches. Several
European countries (Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain) and 2 African
countries (Mali and Benin) have participated in the proposal and the aim is
to rapidly increase the network to have focal points in all EU member
states and an expanding number in Developing Countries. The immediate
benefit maybe that scientists working on health in the South can more
easily find partners in the North for scientific collaboration. Getting
better synergy between research and Development Co-operation is definitely
more difficult and a long-term goal.
Getting the right people into SHARED in Africa could probably indeed be
done by advertising on AFRONETS. Our malinese partner (Mamadou Troare) will
soon be on e-mail and I will suggest this route to the SHARED core group at
our next meeting.
Meanwhile, in the context of SHARED I may be in a position later this year
to try and make some sort of a synthesis statement on the internet
discussion.
Connecting colleagues to the Net was strongly recommended in a recent
important meeting on collaborative research on Malaria in Africa where 50
African scientists agreed that it was crucial. Consequently it is now
seriously discussed by several important agencies and we will have a follow
up meeting in July.
I hope it is now clear to everyone participating in this discussion why I
am so intrigued by it and I am very open to suggestions (direct or via
AFRONETS).
My direct e-mail is: barend@club.innet.be
We are very committed to get something off the ground which seriously
contributes to better partnership between the south and the north in the
field of health and we can use any assistance we may be able to get. The EC
is seriously interested in this and has approved the first proposal for
SHARED after international peer review, after which funds were committed to
get it going.
You may wonder now what the longer message will be like.
Regards,
Barend Mons
Chopinlaan 12
2742 BH Waddinxveen
The Netherlands
Tel. +31-182-631599
e-mail: barend@club.innet.be
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