our experience, we describe the steps taken and the key factors required to establish a functional collaborative consortium among researchers in Africa. In addition, we present the challenges we encountered in building our network, how we managed those challenges and the benefit of such a collaboration for Africa. Although the CKD-Africa Collaboration is focused primarily on CKD research, many of the lessons learnt can be applied more widely in public health research in LMICs. INTRODUCTION Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality, affecting 10%–16% of the general adult populations of Asia, Australia, Europe and North America,1 2 with heterogeneous prevalence in African populations.3 4 The rising burden of CKD is evidenced by its climb in ranking of global causes of disability-adjusted life-years, from 29th in 1990 to 18th in 2019.5 Currently, more than 850million people have kidney disease,6 with a disproportionate burden of this number affecting people in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) where access to care is significantly limited.1 7 In recent years, studies have shown that Africans are seemingly at a high risk for developing CKD,8 are affected at a younger age 9 and have a more rapid progression to kidney failure.9 10 This disproportionate risk is partly attributed to the rapid epidemiological transition, culminating in a high and rising prevalence of hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus,11 12 combined with a high burden of infectious diseases13 and a genetic predisposition to CKD.14 Moreover, there are different methods used to detect kidney damage, which can influence the diagnosis and staging of CKD, and consequently the reported population prevalence.15 Due to the lack of data in many African countries, and the limitations in the available data,3 4 the true burden of CKD in Africa (epidemiological, including age-standardised rates, as Summary box ► The Chronic Kidney Disease in Africa Collaboration (CKD-Africa Collaboration) is an African network of CKD studies that pools individual participant data to: (1) determine the burden of CKD in Africa more accurately, (2) create resources that would allow the burden of CKD to be easily tracked and (3) enable CKD projections to be made in the context of Africa. ► To date, the network has curated data from 39 studies conducted in 12 African countries, totalling 35 747 participants, of which most are from subSaharan Africa. ► The estimates generated through this network will allow for the development of policy related to screening and prevention to address the consequences of CKD in Africa, inform health services planning, and aid understanding of the mechanisms driving CKD across the continent. ► This network has far-reaching potential for Africa, as it is in an ideal position to validate findings across geographical and national boundaries, to test hypotheses and to generate a new understanding of CKD progression and its complications. on July 8, 2022 by guest. Protected by copyright. http://gh.bmj.com/ BMJ Glob Health: first published as 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-006454 on 4 August 2021. Downloaded from 2 George C, et al. BMJ Global Health 2021;6:e006454. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2021-006454 BMJ Global Health well as cost of care and health impact on patients, their family and society) is probably underestimated and thus remains largely unknown. Recognising the shortfall, in 2018/2019, the NonCommunicable Disease Research Unit of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) established the CKD in Africa (CKD-Africa) Collaboration. The major goal of this network is to pool data at the individual participant data (IPD) level from all relevant existing African studies. This will enable the burden of CKD in Africa to be determined more accurately, create resources for the burden of CKD to be easily tracked in future and for projections of CKD to be made in Africa. This would provide reliable estimates to develop policy solutions to address the consequences of CKD in Africa, inform health services planning, and aid the understanding of the mechanisms driving CKD across the continent. Globally, several successful research consortia focus on communicable and non-communicable diseases,16–18 and various studies across Africa successfully employ the use of IPD.19–21 One example of a successful consortium using IPD is the CKD-Prognosis Consortium (CKD-PC),17 established to compile and analyse the best available data on kidney disease and clinical outcomes. This consortium has made a significant contribution to the definition, staging and management of CKD. However, despite the large number of participating cohorts globally, the CKD-PC has no data from Africa and thus there are uncertainties around using its findings to inform CKD management and prevention strategies in Africa. This Practice contribution will introduce the CKDAfrica Collaboration, through describing the steps taken to establish the collaborative research consortium, as well as briefly summarising the current participating studies. Since few published papers currently exist detailing the challenges faced and lessons learnt in setting up and running a research consortium, we will present the challenges we have encountered and how they were managed. Also, we will report on the novelty and effectiveness of this kidney