SACIDS at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania; 2 Department of Preventive Services, Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; 3 National Institute for Communicable Diseases of the National Health Laboratory Services, Sandringham, Johannesburg, South Africa; 4 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique; 5 School of Public Health, University of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; 6 School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zambia, Lusaka; 7 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Muhimbili University for Health and Allied Sciences, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Formed in 2008, the Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance (SACIDS) is a One Health consortium of academic and research institutions involved with infectious diseases of humans and animals. Operating in partnership with world-renowned centres of research in industrialised countries, its mission is to harness innovations in science and technology for improving southern Africa’s capacity to detect, identify, monitor (DIM) and manage the risk posed by infectious diseases of humans, animals, and ecosystems. The consortium’s major capacity development activities include a series of One Health-based Master of Science (MSc) courses and a five-year DIM-driven research program. Additionally, SACIDS organized Africa’s first One Health conference, in July 2011. This paper describes these and other major activities that SACIDS has undertaken to improve infectious disease surveillance across southern Africa. The paper also describes the role and collaboration of SACIDS with other national, regional and international consortia/networks that share a vision and interest in promoting novel approaches to infectious disease surveillance and outbreak response.