The Mission of the International Forum for Community Health in Africa is to help accelerate implementation of on going community focused interventions, with community participation, whether these be public, private or voluntary. This would mean helping to get the work done, helping to identify obstacles to better health, helping to implement strategies that would initiate, institutionalize and sustain health development, help promote partnerships between people and government, assist in identifying the needs of local (district) health systems and finally help identify and target resources (expertise, equipments, finance) to beneficiary communities.

The Organization of the Forum (IFCHA) is based on the principles of group membership, management by objectives and solidarity networking. IFCHA will promote community health dialogue, exchanges and concrete action in local, national and international chapters, with coordination by the international headquarters. The forum is conceived as a market place or rather a network of market places where stake holders and interested parties (health promoters, investors, providers, buyers, beneficiaries, trainers, managers, researchers etc) meet at varying intervals and in different locations. The governance is assured by a general assembly, a board of governors and a small executive secretariat.

The Functioning of the Forum is vested in the network of local, national and international chapters, individually and separately self-reliant, but all committed to a code of conduct – orientation, business practice and ethics. IFCHA Chapters will not create programs of their own but would rather facilitate community oriented and locally managed interventions (government, non governmental, private) emphasizing transparent management of participatory resources, strengthening of partnership arrangements, and reinforcing community development efforts. Twinning of health districts in Africa with those in other continents would be encouraged.

IFCHA Expertise would follow the orientations of the mission, organization and functioning.

- Management Improvement : business management, with accountancy, informatics and documentation;

- Partnership Arrangements: mass communications with law, sociology and economics-

Health Development: health care, with biomedical science, clinical medicine and public health.

IFCHA International Headquarters would be housed in a purpose built conference centre at Mahele, Kribi , Cameroon , and manned by a community health team of visiting research fellows covering priority community health areas, as well as multidisciplinary groups of young graduates undertaking rotating internships in field demonstration areas with a view to working with local communities.

The IFCHA Website manned by the headquarters team, would be the principal “virtual market place” for all concerned – stake holders, manufacturers and consumers, here they will exchange information targeting especially local (district) health systems and their partner communities, with a view to finding resources to make them viable.

Community Health Competitions would be encouraged by IFCHA through local, national and international chapters. IFCHA headquarters would expect to participate in the organization of Africa Health District Competitions. Emulation will accelerate progress.

IFCHA Financial Resources would be developed on a self – reliant basis. All IFCHA chapters will contribute to IFCHA foundation reserves, IFCHA Chapter Budgets and IFCHA Community Health Grants. Membership fees and annual contributions would be “decentralized”, an agreed percentage is kept in the chapters bank accounts for their own functions, the other parts being destined for the reserves (to ensure sustainability) and the community health grants.

Special Support for Community Health Services IFCHA chapters especially the Diaspora would be encouraged to mobilize resources for health and development - expertise, infrastructure, financing – targeted to local council areas and health districts. This will ensure improvements in community health and limit outward manpower migration. IFCHA chapters and partners would publish on the IFCHA website proposed areas of action broken down in to their component units. The encouragement and supervision of development partners would be welcome.

THROUGH THE FORUM WE WILL ALL GAIN – AND AFRICA WILL BE THE WINNER

•  The beneficiary communities will receive better health care

•  Business men and investors through various activities such as transfer of money, purchase and transport of equipments, increased use of media and telecommunications

•  By putting our expertise gainfully into ongoing development projects

•  Finally we will be helping our governments to achieve our objectives