Elevating Country Voices
Hear from the frontlines of community health. Find stories and interviews of community health workers and community health program managers that will deepen understanding of their crucial function delivering lifesaving care to communities.
Navigating the Changing Donor Landscape: Why Gender Equality Must Remain a Priority in Health Financing
The Risk of Gender Equality Setbacks in Health Financing As donor funding for health shifts and declines, governments across Africa are under immense pressure to mobilize domestic resources and prioritize essential services (World Health Organization [WHO], 2023). While this transition is necessary for long-term sustainability, it comes with a significant risk—gender equality in health financing could be deprioritized, deepening existing inequities. Without intentional strategies to ensure gender remains central to health financing decisions, women, girls, and marginalized communities will bear the brunt of funding cuts. Services such as maternal and reproductive health, gender-based violence (GBV) response programs, and community health…
Transforming Health Systems From Within: The Power of Government Partnership
The transformation of healthcare systems rarely begins in boardrooms or policy papers – it often starts with frontline experiences. As someone who has spent years working with system catalysts across the globe, I’ve witnessed how personal frustration with systemic barriers can spark revolutionary change in healthcare delivery. Beyond Hospital Walls The story of community health transformation in Africa demonstrates this perfectly. Take the remote region of Garbatula in northern Kenya, where a critical healthcare challenge emerged: despite having a well-equipped facility, the nomadic pastoral community’s movement patterns meant some days would pass without a single patient walking through the hospital…
The U.S. Foreign Aid Suspension: A Public Health Crisis with a Gendered Impact in East & Southern Africa
Introduction: A Policy Decision with Deep Gendered Consequences The recent suspension of U.S. foreign aid is not just a financial setback for health systems in East and Southern Africa—it is a gendered crisis that disproportionately affects women, girls, and community health workers (CHWs). Countries like Kenya, Zambia, Ethiopia, and Mali rely heavily on U.S. funding to sustain HIV/AIDS programs, maternal and child health services, and gender-based violence (GBV) response efforts. At Financing Alliance for Health (FAH), we have witnessed firsthand how donor-funded health programs transform the lives of vulnerable populations. The current aid suspension threatens to reverse decades of progress…
From Our Partners
Why counties must invest in community health services
Africa Frontline First is an initiative to fund community health programs in sub-Saharan Africa. While this initiative aims to deploy 200,000 professional CHWs by 2030, existing community health volunteers lack essential resources and financial incentives. In this piece, two CHVs from Kenya discuss why county governments must invest in community health services.
–> read more at Nation Africa
How health workers are leading Africa’s COVID-19 response
Community health workers have long responded to disease outbreaks while maintaining lifesaving services. In this September 2021 opinion piece, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia’s president from 2006 to 2018, and Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, share their thoughts on investments that should be prioritized to end the COVID-19 pandemic and realize health for all.
–> read more at Devex
COVID-19 highlights the need for community health
Over recent years, the world has faced two Ebola outbreaks, the constant threat of pandemic influenza, and now the global spread of novel coronavirus and the COVID-19 pandemic. In developing countries, these threats risk exacerbating existing high burdens of communicable diseases associated with millions of preventable deaths. Community health is essential for pandemic preparedness (prevention, surveillance, response) and remains essential for achieving the World Health Organization’s Sustainable Development Goals. The global scale and impact of the current pandemic demonstrates that this cuts across geographies, levels of income, and types of health systems.
–> read more at Think Global Health
