ACHEST has gained recognition as an African institution that is contributing to and playing lead roles in building African rooted and sustainable institutional capacity for analysis and implementation: The areas of focus are:

              (i) Human Resources for Health: Education and Training, Retention and Migration;

              (ii) Health Systems: Stewardship, Governance, Leadership and Implementation capacity.

        As an African civil society organization ACHEST is a regularly invited participant at the African Union consultations on health and is engaged with the leadership of the AU Commission and the NEPAD Health Secretariat.

       ACHEST convened and hosted meetings and consultations with health leaders in Kampala during 2009 such as:

-The 1^st  Steering Committee of the Sub Saharan African Medical Schools Study,

-The African Health Economics Association,

-The African Health Systems and Stewardship Governance Network initial meeting

ACHEST is frequently invited to make presentations at meetings and conferences in Africa and globally.

ACHEST has gained international recognition as an African partner in global health: 

Human Resources for Health:  

- Building capacity for accountable medical education: ACHEST co-chaired the Conference Organizing Committee and oversaw the running of the African Medical Education Symposium that took place in Dar es Salaam Tanzania 19 – 21 April 2010. www.samss.org                                                                                                                                                                                                                 -  Managing Health Worker Migration: In partnership with Realizing Rights and the Global Advisory Policy Council on Health Worker Migration  ACHEST over the last two years coordinated negotiations that have led to the draft Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Workers that will be debated at the next World Health Assembly. www.ministerial-leadership.org

       -  ACHEST cosponsored and convened with Realizing Rights a pre- World Health Assembly conference in Madrid, Spain 10 – 12 May 2010 to facilitate interregional consultation between African health ministers and delegates from other regions ahead of the debate on the draft code on the International Recruitment of Health Workers

       - Together with a number of other international Civil Society Organizations, ACHEST will co-host a civil society Side Event during the 2010 World Health Assembly on Health Worker Migration.

      -  Tracking newly qualified doctors in Uganda: The MoH Uganda requested ACHEST to undertake a study to track and establish the location of graduates from the two Public Medical Schools in Uganda who graduated over the past several years. This study has been completed.

     -  Supporting Country Action on the Health Workforce: ACHEST was an invited participant at the Global Health Workforce Alliance African consultation on Country Cooperation Framework in Accra, Ghana in October 2009 

Health Systems:

• Supporting Ministerial Health Leadership: a strategy for health systems strengthening: The Rockefeller Foundation (RF) commissioned  ACHEST as Principal Investigator along with Dr. Jo Ivey Boufford, President of the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) to undertake a year-long study of needs and feasibility of developing mechanisms for supporting Ministerial Health Leadership for low and middle income countries. The report of this completed study “Strong Ministries for Strong Health Systems” was released in January 2010 and will be formally launched during the World Health Assembly in Geneva in May 2010. Two stakeholder consultations were held as part of this study one at the RF Bellagio conference centre in March 2009  and another for African Health leaders in Kampala in December 2009 both convened by ACHEST and the NYAM. There are a number of follow up activities to the findings and recommendations of the study report: www.strongministries.org
•  Executive Leadership Development for Ministers and their teams: In partnership with Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and WHO, ACHEST presented the results of the “Strong Ministries for Strong Health Systems” report to Ministers of Health of the East, Central and Southern African Health Community in Kampala, February 2010 and also held a closed door Ministerial Round table with the Health Ministers to discuss the findings and recommendations of the report. This was well received and more sessions have been requested. ACHEST and partners are seeking additional resources to implement more of this and the seven recommendations in the strong ministries report                                                                                            

• Mapping Health Partner Resource Institutions (HRPIs): As follow up to this Strong Ministries study, ACHEST has received a grant from NORAD to map existing institutions in countries, HRPIs, that can be marshaled to work together with health ministries and ensure high visibility of the health agenda in the countries and that capacity for analysis and implementation is created and sustained in five countries in Africa.
• Mapping Regionally active HPRIs: Equinet, an African institution an has given ACHEST a grant to map the existing African institutions that are active in health policy and strategy that work regionally in East and Southern Africa.

• Documenting Health Sector Reforms in Uganda: Ministry of Health Uganda is working with ACHEST to document the experience with Health Sector Reforms that were undertaken by the country in the past decade.

• Developing a Health Policy for the Ministry of Defense in Uganda with a grant from WHO contracted ACHEST to support the MoD to develop a military Health Policy for Uganda. This has been completed.
• Evaluating the Health Policy analysis Unit in Uganda: The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at WHO Headquarters has contracted ACHEST to carry out an evaluation of the Health Policy Analysis Unit ant the Ministry of Health in Uganda as apart of a wider study analyzing Policy Analysis centers in low income countries. This study has been completed.
• Senior Advisor to the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health is a Gates funded project based at Realizing Rights at the Aspen Institute;
  Washington DC has appointed the Executive Director to serve as a Senior Adviser. This work is in progress in five countries, four in Africa - Ethiopia, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Nepal in Asia. MLI is in partnership with ACHEST to disseminate the lessons learnt from this experience
• Creating a movement on sustainable African institutional capacity: ACHEST will continue to be an open and inclusive player and will forge partnerships with a wide range of like-minded individuals and institutions in Africa and abroad. Will seek to play the role of advocate and connector ACHEST will seek partnerships with developed country agencies with similar goals.                                                                                                                                                                                              
  
• Working Groups and Net Works: In order to promote the two major focus areas of Human Resources for Health and Health systems, ACHEST has established a Working Group on Education and Training and establishing a Secretariat of the African Health Systems Governance Network (ASHGOVNET).