Two million neighbours in uniform: Africa's plan to put a health worker within reach of everyone

At a summit in Abuja, health leaders from across Africa took stock of a simple, powerful idea: train and pay community health workers — the neighbours who spot a pregnancy at risk, find the child who missed a vaccine, and hear about an outbreak first. The continent's goal is two million of them by 2030. About 1.1 to 1.2 million are trained so far. Africa CDC estimates the push needs $4.3 billion a year, and that every $1 invested can return up to $19 in health and economic benefits. Nigeria, hosting the summit, committed to employing 100,000 salaried community health workers by the end of 2028 and revitalising more than 17,000 primary health centres.

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