Advocate
At the 29th African Union Summit, heads of state committed to deploy 2 million community health workers across the continent as a critical lever to achieve health for all across the continent. But a recent Africa CDC survey revealed that while over 41 African countries have policies supporting salaried and accredited community health workers, only 32 countries have figured out how much their plans will cost – and only 10 countries have a dedicated budget line for community health workers.
What We Do
Our Approach
Advocate: We engage directly with institutions to secure bold commitments and sustained funding.
Promote Standards & Accountability:
We support the development of frameworks like ‘One Plan, One Budget, One Report’, with the goal of developing normative standards, tools, and benchmarks that ensure decision makers and member states deliver on commitments
Engage Champions: We bring together influential leaders to amplify the community health and financing agenda.
Our Impact
Regional Momentum
We collaborated with Africa CDC to launch its five-year strategy, Community Health Strategic Priorities (2023–2027), setting a clear roadmap for scaling and sustaining strong community health programs.
Amplifying the call
Our joint work has contributed to the Monrovia Call to Action, groundbreaking community health policy reports, and influenced conversations at high-level events, including the United Nations General Assembly, World Health Assembly, and the Conference on Public Health in Africa.
Community Health Champions
We mobilized five influential leaders, led by H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, to bolster our advocacy for increased political will and resources for professionalized community health workers across Africa.
Convene & Accelerate
Together with partners, we helped secure commitments from governments to sustain and finance community health workers. For example, in Guinea, the government has committed to include community health worker salaries in local and municipal budget lines, a significant step to ensuring reliable and sustained salaries for community health workers.
Data-Driven Action
We partnered with the Africa CDC to conduct the recent continental survey on community health among African Union member states. The results from the survey will inform our advocacy priorities and lay the groundwork for a community health scorecard—an essential tool we are developing to promote transparency and hold member states accountable for their commitments.
Looking Ahead
By 2030, we aim for African Union member states to deliver on their community health worker commitments, invest in professionalized community health workers, and set a global standard for integrated, sustainable community health systems.