Tested twice before the first race: Senegal's 16-pillar health shield for Africa's first Youth Olympic Games

Senegal is not just hosting Africa's first Youth Olympic Games — it has built and rehearsed a whole health shield around them. Health Minister Ibrahima Sy says the system, organised around 16 pillars, puts advanced medical centres in the three competition zones of Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly, a clinic inside the Olympic Village, a children's referral hospital in Diamniadio, and planned medical evacuation routes run with the national ambulance service. Crucially, it has already been practised: a tabletop exercise on 15 October and a full-scale drill on 24 October, with nearly 180 people taking part, so lessons could be fixed before the athletes arrived. The World Health Organization's Africa director, Mohamed Yakub Janabi, visited to back the preparations — and the minister's hope is that what was built for the Games, which run to 13 November, stays behind as a stronger health system for everyone in Senegal.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: institutional program