Africa Health Collaborative adopts nine youth recommendations to reshape continent's health workforce

What changed

The Africa Health Collaborative, in partnership with the University of Cape Town, has received nine specific recommendations from more than 80 young African health professionals to reshape the continent's health workforce strategy. These proposals, developed during the Ubuntu Rising 2026 event ahead of the 18th World Congress on Public Health, focus on leadership, innovation, and employment. They will directly inform the Collaborative’s Youth Agenda, shifting the focus from simply counting young people trained to measuring their actual influence on health systems.

Why it matters

The recommendations address a stark structural mismatch in Africa’s health sector. Current data cited at the event reveals that 90% of employed young Africans work in the informal economy, and 34% of these workers live below the $2.15-a-day poverty line. In the health sector specifically, the continent faces a shortage of 5.5 million health workers, yet nearly one million trained health professionals remain without meaningful work. This paradox suggests the issue is not a lack of talent, but a failure of systems to create formal, impactful roles.

Prof. Brandon Collier-Reed, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning at the University of Cape Town, framed this disconnect during the event. He argued that employment alone is not the goal, but rather whether the systems built are working for young people. The nine recommendations aim to fix this by embedding entrepreneurship and policy understanding directly into higher education, rather than treating them as standalone interventions. For institutions like the University of Cape Town, this signals a long-term shift toward integrating leadership and problem-solving capabilities into existing curricula. If adopted, this could help convert the informal workforce into formal sector contributors, directly benefiting young health professionals who currently lack clear pathways to decision-making.

The path from these recommendations to actual policy change remains conditional on political will and fiscal capacity in national governments. If national health ministries prioritize these youth-focused reforms, we could see increased budget allocations for youth-specific health innovation hubs. However, competing national budget priorities or a lack of institutional capacity in local ministries could dampen these effects, leaving the recommendations as advisory guidelines rather than binding policy.

What to watch next

The first concrete signal of progress will be the publication of the official Youth Agenda document by the Africa Health Collaborative, which should incorporate these nine recommendations. Following this, look for the announcement of new funding mechanisms or calls for proposals specifically targeting youth health innovation. The absence of such documents or funding calls within the coming months would indicate that the recommendations are struggling to move beyond the advisory stage.