About Us

The health care situation in sub-Saharan Africa has a devastating impact on the lives of the region’s people. The Touch Foundation exists to confront this challenge.

Many of the severe health crises in sub-Saharan Africa are caused or exacerbated by the chronic lack of health workers.  The Touch Foundation is addressing this challenge directly by dramatically expanding a regional medical training college and teaching hospital in rural Tanzania.  In just five years the number of students has risen from just 10 to over 800. Such is our success that the Tanzanian government requested that the Touch Foundation create an expansion plan for health worker training across the country.  

Our results have been possible because we utilize the best management skills from business and bring together key partnerships with institutions such as Mckinsey & Company and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.  Ultimately, the Touch Foundation aims to make itself redundant overtime, leaving behind a fully functioning health worker training system that can be replicated across Africa.

We see three fundamental problems that we and our partners need to address if a lasting solution is to be found:

• There is a critical shortage of health workers – doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and lab technicians.
• Existing health systems are weak – transportation, communication, management, infection control, data analysis, and more.
• Too few clinics exist in rural areas; those that do lack adequate equipment and supplies.

So we combine the best of private and public sector methods and expertise as we collaborate with in-country leaders to find long-term, practical solutions. We are already seeing the results of this approach in Tanzania, an East African country whose population is acutely affected by the workforce shortage.

Our Vision

We see a future in which healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa is comparable to healthcare in wealthier countries.

• Where every person has access to a doctor
• Where every hospital has the facilities and equipment to diagnose, treat and care for all its patients
• Where maternal mortality is rare and every child has a good chance of living beyond five years of age

Realizing this vision is a long-term task, complicated by extreme poverty. However, as with any complex problem, a pragmatic step-by-step approach combined with determination will deliver results. We analyze the problem to fully understand it, improve management capacity to deal with it, and then prioritize use of limited resources to overcome it. Finally, we adopt and share best practice wherever and whenever we find it. Our approach is already showing results.

Touch Foundation is a secular, not-for-profit, registered 501(c)(3) organization incorporated under the laws of Connecticut. Our latest report, "Achieving Better Health," provides an overview of our work.