Some health experts have called on African countries to strengthen ownership of health workforce development and increase domestic financing.

The experts also urged African countries to integrate community health workers into national health systems to address persistent shortages of health professionals across the continent.

They made the call on Wednesday in Abuja at the State of Africa’s Health Workforce and Community Health 2026, which examined strategies to strengthen workforce planning, improve investment, and ensure sustainable access to healthcare.

Luvuyo Bayeni, chief director of Health Workforce Development in South Africa and chair of Health Workforce Technical Team Working Stream One, highlighted the importance of taking ownership of the continent’s health workforce development plan.

Mr Bayeni spoke on the plan’s ownership and pillars, emphasising the need for countries to establish structures that would translate commitments into practical action. He said effective implementation required clear national leadership, coordinated planning and sustained commitment to addressing workforce gaps.

Fidele Ngabo Gaga, head of the Division of Community Health Systems and Health Promotion at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), stressed the need for inclusive workforce planning.

Mr Gaga said the Africa CDC intended to support member states in assessing and evaluating their human resources for health strategies to ensure that all categories of health workers were adequately represented. He said community health workers must be recognised as an integral part of the health workforce and incorporated into national human resource planning, policy development and implementation.

According to him, such integration must go beyond policy documents to ensure that community health workers are fully recognised within national health systems.

On financing, he identified investment gaps, resource mobilisation, governance and leadership as critical areas requiring attention. He said a dedicated workforce stream would focus on financing and resource mobilisation, with co-chairs drawn from Chad’s Ministry of Finance and the African Development Bank (AfDB).

Sunny Okoroafor of the Health Workforce Development Unit at the World Health Organisation said the plan to recruit two million community health workers across Africa would not, on its own, address the continent’s health workforce shortages.

Mr Okoroafor said that community health workers had distinct responsibilities and that increasing their numbers would not replace the need for doctors, nurses, midwives and other specialised health professionals.

(NAN)