The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has called on Nigeria to translate its continental leadership into tangible progress toward achieving Africa’s target of two million community health workers by 2030.
The charge was delivered by Dr. Landry Dongmo Tsague, Director of Primary Health Care at Africa CDC, during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the State of Africa’s Health Workforce and Community Health 2026 conference in Abuja.
Dr. Dongmo Tsague emphasised that President Bola Tinubu’s role as the African Union (AU) Champion for Human Resources for Health and Community Health Delivery Partnership positions Nigeria to set a benchmark for the continent in building resilient primary healthcare systems.
To realise this vision, the Africa CDC official outlined five strategic priorities Nigeria must implement:
Predictable Domestic Financing: Integrating training, deployment, salaries, supervision, and essential supplies for community health workers directly into federal and state budgets, while optimizing existing frameworks like the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF).
Inter-Governmental Coordination: Strengthening alignment between federal, state, and local governments to ensure health worker expansion is synchronized with functional primary health facilities, medical supplies, and referral systems.
Measurable Implementation Roadmap: Developing a transparent national strategy featuring clear annual targets, designated responsibilities, and robust performance-tracking mechanisms through 2030.
Formal Workforce Integration: Establishing structured career pathways, standardizing competency-based training, ensuring supportive supervision, and offering fair remuneration to fully integrate community health workers into the national health cadre.
Continental Advocacy and Alignment: Leveraging Nigeria’s AU stewardship to inspire fellow African nations to formulate costed acceleration plans and encouraging international development partners to align funding with government-led priorities.
“The measurable commitments should include annual workforce deployment targets, budget allocations, numbers of community health workers trained and remunerated, progress in formal workforce integration, and regular public reporting on implementation,” Dongmo Tsague stated.
He added that by translating top-level political commitment into a sustainably funded national strategy, Nigeria can provide a scalable model for other African nations as the continent works toward its collective health goals by 2030.(NAN)
