Building, nurturing and strengthening the capacity of African entomologists and enhancing the entomological capacity of African institutions to respond to vector-borne disease is central to PAMCA’s role in the African vector-borne disease management and control landscape. PAMCA endeavours to coordinate the establishment and empowerment of country chapters across Africa to build strong institutional entomological capacity and to create linkages that foster collaborative, optimized response to vector-borne diseases. PAMCA will achieve this through:

• Organising annual conferences, a platform for key stakeholders in public health entomology/vector control community to share knowledge and advances understanding of mosquito vector biology, ecology, management, control and elimination strategies. PAMCA leverages this platform to publicize its activities and its potential to bring together African scientists, research institutions and government agencies, to discuss priority issues in vector-borne disease prevention, management and control interventions.
• Design and deliver an innovative training programme for malaria control implementers, which combine practical malariology and multi-sectoral approaches so as to accelerate elimination efforts and sustain gains.
• Develop and implement a programme of career progression for aspiring young medical entomology professionals in the chapter countries as a way to ensure sustained supply of highly trained, properly qualified human capital in the area of entomology to tackle future needs of vector-borne disease interventions.
• Provide on-demand training program for PAMCA partners in the respective country chapters on a range of thematic topics relevant to vector surveillance such as digitization and roll-out of essential taxonomic keys for malaria mosquitoes and adaptation of technical guidelines for specific interventions e.g. larviciding.
• Design programme initiatives targeted at enhancing technical capacity of the existing entomologists and attract future cohorts of skilled personnel in the region to inform vector-borne disease prevention, management and control strategies, and to implement interventions for malaria elimination. Coupled to this, PAMCA spearheads and coordinates documentation of existing entomological capacity across Africa, while leveraging and building on its existing professional membership base in Africa.
• Establish an exchange programme to train national programme entomologists in Eastern Africa (IHI-Tanzania), West Africa (IRSS-Burkina Faso) and Central Africa (CRID-Cameroon) at Masters, PhD and post-doctoral level to gain essential skills in key disciplines such as epidemiology, vector biology, data analytics, policy translation, behavioral sciences, and economic evaluation, required for vector-borne disease intervention including malaria elimination in different settings.
• Promote training and development of skills in the management of Aedine vectors to enhance surveillance and response efforts to arthropod-borne viruses, Aedine vector bionomics, and disease ecology.