ACSIP: Continental Monitoring and Evaluation: The African Core Surgical Indicators Package
Background
The 2025 Addis Ababa Member State Resolution mandates PASHeF, anchored within the African Union and Africa CDC architecture, to support, coordinate, monitor and report continental progress in perioperative care.3 That mandate is not currently executable: there is no agreed continental definition of what a Member State should report about its surgical system. Global frameworks exist and are conceptually sound, but a recent systematic review found national reporting against them to be sparse and uneven, and recommended that integrating surgical metrics into national health information systems be treated as a policy priority.
Objective
To establish, through structured African expert and Member State consensus, a prioritised and feasible package of surgical indicators for routine integration into national health information systems and for continental reporting through the Africa CDC.
Approach
and launch
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Item generation — Desk review, extraction from global, regional and national frameworks, and a continental data systems mapping.
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Three Delphi rounds — A panel of 60-80 rates every candidate indicator on public health importance AND implementation feasibility as independent, co-primary axes. Conducted and reported to ACCORD standards, with consensus thresholds set a priori.
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Nov 2026 · Ratification — Nominal group and Member State vote at PASHeF IV, Day 2. Provisional package circulated three weeks in advance.
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2027 · Translation — Metadata compendium with proposed DHIS2 element mapping, and Phase I pilots in three to five early-adopter Member States.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION FRAMEWORK
Inputs
Outputs
Panel of 80 quota-balanced by region, language and cadre; Desk review 0.5 FTE Principal investigators.
Core Package indicators; Extended Package indicators Framework for Harmonized Surgical Data Reporting
Importable DHIS2 metadata bundle.
Outcomes
3–5 States reporting Phase I by mid 2027, 20 States by 2030; Perioperative Data Task Force meeting quarterly.
Impact
Surgical indicators integrated into the Africa CDC/DHIS continental monitoring architecture, alongside the Central Data Repository.