My comment to this question is that mentorship is fine and helpful but most researchers in LLMICs wake up everyday wishing that they gave more than that, they wish to have more practical support on the ground from their governments and partners from elsewhere. Help in the form of more resourcing including provision of functional information resource centres with regular reliable connectivity, hard and soft copy reference texts, regular scheduled on-hands training and retraining on how to read, write and publish, including training on critical appraisal of published material. They need help with free open access to publish their work to the world. These essential inputs are lacking in most LLMICs and in large part make it difficult for researchers to carry out studies on even conditions that afflict their countries more than HICs. The result for instance, is that original cutting-edge drugs and vaccine research on conditions like malaria that kills millions in these countries, has come from countries where mosquitos have to be grown in laboratories (mosquitos in LLMICs are free range and ubiquitous).
Joseph Ana
HIFA profile: Joseph Ana is the Lead Senior Fellow/Medical Consultant at the Centre for Clinical Governance Research and Patient Safety in Calabar, Nigeria, established by HRI Global (former HRIWA). He is a member of the World Health Organisation’s Technical Advisory Group on Integrated Care in primary, emergency, operative, and critical care (TAG-IC2). As the Cross River State Commissioner for Health, he led the introduction of the Homegrown Quality Tool, the 12-Pillar Clinical Governance Programme, in Nigeria (2004-2008). For sustainability, he established the Department of Clinical Governance, Servicom & e-health in the Cross River State Ministry of Health, Nigeria. His main interest is in whole health sector and system strengthening in Lower, Low and Middle Income Countries (LLMICs). He has written six books on the 12-Pillar Clinical Governance programme, suitable for LLMICs, including the TOOLS for Implementation. He served as Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association’s Standing Committee on Clinical Governance (2012-2022), and he won the Nigeria Medical Association’s Award of Excellence on three consecutive occasions for the innovation. He served as Chairman, Quality & Performance, of the Technical Working Group for the implementation of the Nigeria Health Act 2014. He is member, National Tertiary Health Institutions Standards Committee of the Federal Ministry of Health. He is the pioneer Secretary General/Trustee-Director of the NMF (Nigerian Medical Forum) which took the BMJ to West Africa in 1995. Joseph is a member of the HIFA Steering Group and the HIFA working group on Community Health Workers. (http://www.hifa.org/support/members/joseph-0 http://www.hifa.org/people/steering-group). Email: info AT hri-global.org and jneana AT yahoo.co.uk
