Nature | April 24, 2015
The first reality check concerns money. The AU has budgeted just US$6.9 million for its start-up phase from July 2015 to December 2016, and the centre would initially have just 11 staff members, far short of what is needed to operate a pan-African public-health agency, say experts. “If it is done right, it would be a marvellous thing,” says Lawrence Gostin, a scholar of public-health law at Georgetown University in Washington DC. However, “the budget and staffing are entirely incommensurate with its goals”.