Funding and collaboration among Member States and the international community could help Africa sustainably recruit, retain and equip community health workers to grow this workforce to 500,000 by 2027.
This ambition has been boosted by the Africa CDC partnership with UNICEF, which drives the African Union initiative to meet 2 million community health workers. The strategic commitment to strengthen the Community Health Workforce was made in 2017 by African Union Heads of State and government.
These key aspects emerged from a country consultation workshop organized by the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and UNICEF held from 6-10 May in Addis Ababa.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, community health workers played a pivotal role in response efforts, ensuring the continuity of essential services, including vaccination. "Unfortunately, many African community health programs are underfunded and poorly integrated within primary healthcare systems," said Dr Laila Gad, UNICEF representative to the African Union and United Nations, Economic Community for Africa.
To effect change, she said prioritization in investment must go to community health workers, ensuring they are adequately compensated, skilled, and supported, with particular attention to women workers.
"This investment will not only accelerate health targets for all African children but also better prepare health systems for future pandemics and public health emergencies," she said.
Dr Gad also noted that partnership is paramount in this endeavour. UNICEF is committed to fostering effective global, regional, and country collaboration within frameworks such as the Community Health Delivery Partnership (CHDP) and the Continental Coordination Mechanism (CCM), where they work alongside Africa CDC and the African Union.
"There is a need to share best practices, pool resources, and coordinate activities at Member States and continental levels to maximize the impact and achieve greater efficiency in improving healthcare services across the continent through the operationalization of the continental coordination mechanism (CCM) for community health," said Dr Mohammed Abdulaziz, Head of Division, Disease Control and Prevention, Africa CDC.
Dr Richard Kabanda, Chair of the Africa CCM Technical Working Group, saw the meeting as an opportunity to define pathways for the scale-up of community health workers in selected member states, strengthen the relevancy and roles of community health workers for EPR while advancing the immunization agenda on the continent, leading to reduction of the number of preventable outbreaks.
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Twenty countries, including Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia, had a chance to work on possible budgets for their community health workers' initiatives.
"This engagement will serve as an icon for working with partners on the continent, avoiding duplication, streamlining resource mobilization and allocation, and strengthening CCM," said Kabanda.
As we look ahead to the future, it is clear that community health workers will continue to play a vital role in our efforts to improve primary health care through improved immunization coverage and pandemic preparedness and response, said Dr Abdulaziz. "It is essential that we invest in their training, supervision, procurement of working tools and suppliers, remuneration, and support to ensure that they can effectively carry out their duties and make a meaningful impact on the health of their communities," he added.
