#### Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Africa CDC. **Point person: Dr. Elvis Temfack (Senior Research Officer, Division of Public Health Institutes and Research).** The Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Through its programs, it aims to strengthen the capacity and capability of Africa’s public health institutions as well as partnerships to detect and respond quickly and effectively to disease threats and outbreaks, based on data-driven interventions and programmes. It also supports the establishment and strengthening of National Public Health Institutes to coordinate surveillance systems in a multi-sectoral approach and ensure that surveillance data informs national policy and public health actions. As a research and technical institution, it facilitates and strengthens the Regional Collaborating Centres to promote inter-country and regional collaboration on surveillance, shared data use, and engagement with laboratory networks. Through our engagement, the APCC can leverage on Africa CDC’s wide regional outreach through its focal coordination centres in public health as well as its research work across the continent for early warning, risk assessment, disease predictions, and response. Africa CDC should be informed on the ongoing longitudinal studies across Africa to gauge how best its research work can enhance the APCC program including engagement with cohort leads on the longitudinal health research studies**.** #### East Africa Commission (EAC) **Point person:       Dr. Eric Nzeyimana (Principal of Health)** The East African Community (EAC) is a regional intergovernmental organisation of eight  (8) Partner States, comprising the Republic of Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Rwanda, Federal Republic of Somalia, Republic of South Sudan, Republic of Uganda and United Republic of Tanzania, with its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. The EAC provides room for increased collaboration in the area of disease surveillance and epidemic control and prevention of spread. This is because the frequent population movement across the borders of the five countries poses a greater risk of spreading diseases from one country to another. The response to such a potential regional epidemiological emergency is complex and involves national, regional and international agencies requiring an efficient and quick flow of information across the borders.  In order to promote the achievement of the helath related objectives as set out in Article 118 of the Treaty for the establishment of the EAC, there are five standing Technical Working Groups. These are: 1. Medicines and Food Safety; 2. Control and Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), HIV and AIDS; 3. Control and Prevention of Communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases; 4. Health Research, Policy and Health Systems Development; and, 5. Reproductive, Child, Adolescent Health and Nutrition.  As part of the stakeholder engagement work, APCC acknowledges the importance of EAC as a regional governmental institution in leading and managing systems geared towards delivering health as a human right. As evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the EAC provides a platform for communicating and coordinating national and cross-border agreements in strengthening health systems and delivering care. With the objective of engagement with key stakeholders at local and national, regional, and continental/global levels, APCC intends to capitalise on the network of experts and influencers in advocating for a well-coordinated continent-wide hub of knowledge. #### WHO-AFRO **Point Person:                  Dr. Ngongoni Chipo (Health Innovation Ecosystems Management Specialist - World Health Organization)** The WHO Regional Office for Africa (WHO-AFRO) is one of WHO’s six regional offices around the world. It serves the WHO African Region, which comprises 47 Member States with the Regional Office in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. As the lead health authority within the United Nations (UN) system, they work with the Member States in the African Region and development partners to improve the health and well-being of people. Their work involves translation of global health initiatives into regional plans that respond to the specific needs and challenges of countries in the Region. The Office also supports countries to achieve better health outcomes through technical and policy advice, development of norms and standards, generation and sharing of knowledge and convening health partners. Together with countries, they attain health objectives by supporting national health policies and strategies. As part of the APCC stakeholder engagement work, we acknowledge the current role of the WHO-Afro Office in tackling the five most neglected tropical diseases in Africa through its flagship, Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ESPEN) program. In implementing this program, it has leveraged on its public and private partnerships across various countries in Africa to provide evidence based guidelines on effective tropical disease interventions and enhanced data sharing mechanisms. With the objective of engagement with key stakeholders, at local and national, regional, and continental/global levels, we hope to capitalise on the WHO-Afro’s ESPEN program network of experts and influencers in advocating for a well-coordinated continent-wide hub of knowledge. The APCC intends to engage the WHO –AFRO Office in establishing linkages with the various categories of high level and high influence stakeholder’s actors Africa and becoming a Funding partner of the APCC. #### East Africa Health Research Commission (EAHRC) **Point person:                  Dr. Fabian Mashauri (Deputy Executive Secretary/Principal Health Officer at the East African Health Commission (EAHRC).** The EAHRC was established by the Heads of State of the EAC Partner States, as stipulated by the provisions of Article 118 of the Treaty of the establishment of the East African Community. It is a mechanism for making available to the EAC, advice upon all matters of health and health-related research and findings that are necessary for; knowledge generation, technological development, policy formulation, and practice. It is the principal advisory institution to the EAC on Health Research and Development (R&D). Currently, the EAHRC is implementing a five-year 2016 – 2021 Strategic Plan that is aimed at  promoting and coordinating the conduct and application of health research for the improvement of public health in East Africa. It also has established research programmes, networks, partnerships and centres of excellence in health research which the APCC can leverage on for health research knowledge sharing and management. The East African Health Research Commission coordinates and maps out a regional agenda on health research as well as the translation of its results into policy and practice within the Partner States which is crucial to the objectives of the APCC i.e. knowledge brokering for population health research. #### Partners in Population and Development (PPD) **Point person: Patrick Mugirwa, (Programme Manager, PPD ARO)** Partners in Population and Development (PPD) is an intergovernmental initiative created specifically for the purpose of expanding and improving South-to-South collaboration in the fields of reproductive health, population, and development. It stresses the need to establish mechanisms to promote development through the sharing of experiences in reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP) within and among countries and to promote effective partnerships among the governments, Non- Governmental-Organizations (NGOs), research institutions and the private sector. Notably, the Partners in Population and Development (PPD)  are the point institution for the  Network of African Parliamentary Committees on Health (NEAPACOH) hence the APCC can leverage on its evidence-based health research resources across African countries as well as strong linkages with policy makers across Africa. For increased interest, PPD has to be well informed on work being conducted by the popualtion cohorts in the APCC and the overall aims and objectives of the consortium as it has potential strong government linkages which will be cricual to the policy and governance aspects of  the APCC program. ### Conclusion During formative phase of the APCC the key stakeholders we engaged, appreciated the potential of the APCC program to revolutionise population health research in Africa by establishing a network of diverse population cohorts, collecting standardised data, and fostering collaboration to address the unique healthcare challenges faced by Africa. However, in the course of our engagements, we have noted that some of the stakeholders showed more interest than others in interacting with the APCC.  The Africa CDC, EAHRC and WHO -AFRO Office have the requisite high influence and high interest in the progress of the APCC which can be built upon, whereas the EAC and the PPD have the high influence but low interest in the APCC which should be cultivated with more stakeholder engagements.