Young Africans are set to transform the digital health landscape with the launch of the Youth in Digital Health Network (YiDHN) by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) in collaboration with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit-African Union (GIZ-AU) office.
Africa CDC's Youth Division announced this program on the sidelines of the 2024 Africa HealthTech Summit in Kigali, Rwanda. The youth-led initiative seeks to amplify youth voices, foster leadership, and connect young innovators with multilateral organizations in the health and technology sectors.
The launch was preceded by a two-day co-creation workshop where participants discussed opportunities and challenges for youth engagement in Africa CDC's Digital Transformation Strategy (DTS). Through collaborative sessions, they identified solutions to overcome barriers to youth-led innovation and enhance youth participation in health policy and decision-making.
Dr. Jean Philbert Nsengimana, Chief Digital Advisor at Africa CDC, underscored YiDHN's role as a key player within the broader African digital health networks to advance the DTS. "This strategy aims to revolutionize health systems across the continent through the adoption of digital technologies, promotion of data-driven decision-making, and fostering of collaborative solutions to combat health challenges, ultimately improving health outcomes for all African Union Member States," he said.
During the workshop, four significant challenges were identified for YiDHN to address. These include Digital Literacy--bridging the digital divide; Regulatory and Policy Frameworks--establishing supportive policies to drive youth innovation; Funding and Innovation Gaps--improving access to financial resources; and Stakeholder Access--facilitating connections with government and private sector leaders.
Mr. Ibraheem Sanusi, Head of the Project for Strengthening Crisis and Pandemic Action in Africa at the GIZ-AU office, acknowledged the importance of tackling these challenges. "This has been an initiative designed and created by young people themselves; all we have done is to provide the platform, resources, and incentives required to move from talking to doing," he emphasized.
The YiDHN was launched to empower African youth to drive and shape digitally enabled, equitable, and resilient healthcare systems in Africa. It will contribute to the vision of the African Digital Health Network to unite Africa's digital health communities to share knowledge, build partnerships, drive innovation, and enhance capacity building, fostering collaboration for sustainable health outcomes across the continent.
The YiDHN's strategic objectives include empowering youth leadership through digital literacy, increasing youth participation in governance and policy, promoting innovation by facilitating funding access for sustainable growth, and fostering collaboration with key stakeholders. These objectives address the identified challenges and lay a clear path for the network's future.
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Dr. Chrys Promesse Kaniki, Senior Technical Officer for Strategic Programs at Africa CDC, said YiDHN is driven by long-standing disparities and inefficiencies in healthcare delivery in Africa, which have delayed the continent's efforts to achieve universal health coverage and improved health outcomes for all. He invited all interested young people, youth-led, and youth-focused organizations to join the YiDHN by filling in the online form available here. "We know that digital solutions have the potential to transform the health sector by reducing costs and improving access in hard-to-reach areas across our continent," he said.
