Successful international cooperation strategies: training and capacity building of healthcare personnel at the national health chool of Rosso in Mauritania

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the necessity, both globally and in Mauritania, for nursing professionals to possess the required knowledge and skills that enable them to ensure care across diverse healthcare settings, including hospitals and community-based services where their interventions take place. Since 2020, as part of the International Training of Trainers Program, a project has been initiated to enhance healthcare personnel training in several African countries, with particular focus on Mauritania. Strategically located just 100 km off the African coast, the Canary Islands serve as a global knowledge hub for this project, attracting mentors from prestigious national and international institutions, as well as Canary Islands experts and trained African professionals, especially from the Sub-Saharan region. This paper presents the successful experience of the program at the Rosso School of Public Health as an exemplary model of multi actor training and cooperation, involving diverse institutions and mechanisms of aid and financing. In Mauritania, the teaching of nursing and midwifery competen cies and skills falls upon the National Health Schools, which face limitations in both material resources and teaching staff . The shortage of specialized personnel in the country, coupled with demands for improvement in available resources for nursing and midwifery education and continuous training, has generated the need for cooperation and support. The objective is to enhance the technical and technological knowledge and skills of healthcare professionals through training both in Mauritania and in hospital and academic institutions in the Canary Islands. Subsequently, it is expected that they will apply and disseminate this knowledge, as well as implement the acquired skills in their respective coun tries and healthcare centers of origin.