Background: Africa bears 24% of the world’s disease burden yet has available only 3% of global health care workers.1 The Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) has aimed to alleviate this health worker shortage by increasing training and infrastructure capacities at Sub-Saharan African medical schools. Financial awards totaling $130 million were made to 13 medical schools, most of which were established and with track records in graduating health workers. Very few newly opened medical schools—institutions that tend to suffer from limited funding, acute shortages of faculty, and insufficient facilities—were included in the MEPI initiative. Innovation: The Consortium of New Southern African Medical Schools (CONSAMS) was created in 2012 by five new medical schools in southern Africa that sought to support each other through the sharing of ideas, programs, faculty, and facilities: University of Namibia School of Medicine, Windhoek, Namibia; Copperbelt University School of Medicine, Ndola, Zambia; Lurio University School of Medicine, Nampula, Mozambique; University of Botswana School of Medicine, Botswana; and National University of Lesotho, Lesotho. Also included in the consortium were two established “Northern” medical schools—Vanderbilt University in the United States and Oulu University in Finland—which serve a guiding and facilitating role and have submitted grants to fund specific projects. MEPI provided a small grant to help support CONSAMS. The mission and major goal of CONSAMS was to promote a productive “interdependence” among new medical schools in Africa through the creation of “networks, alliances and consortia” as advocated in the landmark 2010 Lancet report.1 Outcomes: In just over two years, CONSAMS has created a highly supportive interdependent network with active working groups dealing with undergraduate medical education, postgraduate training, and research. Specific outcomes include the adoption by partner schools of Universidad Lurio’s One-Student-One-Family community health program, which pairs medical students with families living in rural communities to serve as their health advocates. There is also ongoing development of accreditation standards that includes curriculum reviews and a system of external examiners between partner schools; implementation of pedagogical methods appropriate to the contexts of each school (driven from Oulu University); development of interprofessional training programs, specifically at the medical schools of Namibia and Universidad Lurio; and ongoing discussions on the structure of postgraduate training programs and recruitment of clinical faculty for these programs. The two northern partners have assisted in recruiting faculty, providing seed funding, and applying for grants. Comment: New medical schools have the capacity to be more agile and adaptive to change than their established counterparts.1 But new medical schools in southern Africa also face daunting challenges primarily due to resource constraints. Working together through networks, alliances, and consortia such as CONSAMS is an approach that can strengthen medical education capabilities in resource-constrained areas.