Africa builds one table for its primary health care plans
A new continental mechanism rests on a simple rule: countries lead, regional bodies coordinate, partners support. It comes with scorecards and annual reviews.
Addis Ababa — African governments have agreed to set up a single continental forum to coordinate primary health care, the first level of care that people reach for vaccinations, childbirth, nutrition and everyday illness, according to an outcome statement published by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The statement comes from a first consultation held in Addis Ababa on 4 and 5 June. It brought together the officials who run primary health care, maternal and child health and digital health in African Union member states, with the African Union Commission, UN agencies, the British government, civil society and academics.
The principle
The mechanism rests on one sentence: countries lead, regional and continental institutions coordinate, and partners support.
Its purpose is to line up policies, investment, technical help and partnerships behind each country's own priorities, and to hold everyone involved to account.
How it is organised
A continental leadership forum sits at the top. Beneath it are specialist forums:
- one for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health;
- one for digital health and innovation, covering data, interoperability, artificial intelligence and governance;
- one recommended for community health and health promotion;
- one recommended for immunisation, including in fragile and conflict-affected places.
Others may follow, on subjects such as non-communicable diseases, mental health, the health workforce, and climate and health.
What governments committed to
Among the commitments in the statement:
- integrate maternal and child health, immunisation, nutrition, water and sanitation, community health and disease control into primary care;
- raise sustainable financing at home and abroad, and spend it more efficiently;
- introduce continental scorecards, annual progress reviews and recommendations to ministers;
- adopt a common tool to assess how mature each country's digital health systems are;
- prepare costed investment cases for digital health;
- strengthen the governance and protection of health data, including hosting it under national control.
The context
The consultation was framed by what the African Union calls its health security and sovereignty agenda. Participants described strong primary care as the foundation of universal health coverage and of resilience against outbreaks, and as essential to fair access for communities that are poorly served.
Source: Africa CDC, statement of a consultation held on 4–5 June 2026, published 8 October 2026.
