The Federal Government plans to put 100,000 community health workers on regular salaries by 2027 as part of efforts to improve their welfare, protect their rights and strengthen community healthcare services across Nigeria.
Vice President Kashim Shettima announced the target on Thursday in Abuja during the inauguration of the Community Health Programme Continental Acceleration Plan 2026–2030 at the Continental High-Level Forum on a Fit-for-Purpose Health Workforce. He said the government was committed to ensuring that community health workers received legal recognition, certification, dependable salaries, proper supervision and career development opportunities.
Shettima said fair, competitive and consistent remuneration for medical personnel was essential to building strong community health services and institutions across the country.
He noted that the number of community health workers was increasing across Africa but warned that governments must address the challenges facing the workforce to achieve the continent’s healthcare goals.
According to him, the Community Health Programme Continental Acceleration Plan focuses on governance, primary healthcare integration, workforce development, digital systems, service delivery, financing, medical supplies and accountability.
He said the plan would help create a future where community health workers had legal recognition, certification, reliable salaries, supervision and career opportunities.
Shettima stressed that the distance between a household and a health worker could determine whether a person survived or died, adding that governments had a responsibility to ensure that access to healthcare did not depend on where people were born.
He also acknowledged President Bola Tinubu’s efforts in financing health reforms and advancing Africa’s health workforce agenda as an African Union Champion.
The Vice President recalled that Nigeria’s Ministers of Health and Finance had convened a meeting in Addis Ababa in February on behalf of the President.
He said 25 years after the Abuja Declaration committed African governments to allocating at least 15 per cent of their national budgets to healthcare, Nigeria must address the number of households still without access to essential health services.
Shettima said community health workers must not be taken for granted because they played important roles in identifying maternal health risks, finding unvaccinated children, collecting household health data and detecting disease outbreaks.
He added that their services sustained primary healthcare, universal health coverage and health security, stressing that countries needed enough skilled workers who were fairly paid, supported and properly distributed.
The Vice President also expressed concern over declining international health funding, noting that about 85 per cent of African Union member states depended heavily on donors to finance community health programmes.
He said Nigeria had accepted its responsibility but acknowledged that its community health workforce remained below the 315,000 workers required by 2030.
Shettima said President Tinubu’s Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative had secured more than $2.2 billion in commitments, with programmes to revitalise more than 17,000 primary healthcare centres and train 120,000 frontline health workers.
“Our goal is 100,000 salaried community health workers by 2027,” he said.
On the Community Health Programme Continental Acceleration Plan 2026–2030, Shettima said the initiative required properly equipped health workers, reliable medical supplies, community participation and integrated digital registries under African control.
He disclosed that the plan’s ambitious implementation scenario would require about $28 billion through 2030, with more than 80 per cent of the funding allocated to recurrent costs.
He added that the programme projected $19 in economic and social benefits for every dollar invested, with the returns expected to include healthier communities and lives saved.
However, he stressed that these benefits would depend on sustained funding and urged every country to commit to a nationally owned plan, budget and monitoring framework.
Earlier, the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Salako, commended President Tinubu for approving Nigeria’s hosting of the high-level forum and the launch of the Community Health Programme Continental Acceleration Plan 2026–2030.
Salako said the initiative held significant importance for the future of community health workers and primary healthcare delivery across Africa.
He assured stakeholders that Nigeria remained committed to achieving the continental target, adding that the acceleration plan aligned with the Renewed Hope Agenda, which prioritised stronger disease surveillance and community resilience.
Also speaking, Egypt’s Deputy Minister of Health for Population and Family Development, Dr Abla Al-Alfi, emphasised the need to strengthen primary healthcare systems and empower community health workers to improve maternal and family health outcomes.
She said Egypt was collaborating with relevant government institutions, including the Ministries of Social Solidarity and Youth, to raise health awareness, improve community participation and reduce preventable maternal deaths.
Al-Alfi said the success of maternal and family health programmes depended on strengthening primary healthcare and supporting community health workers, who played important roles in educating mothers and families.
Similarly, the Deputy Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Dr Raji Tajudeen, called for stronger political commitment to community healthcare delivery across Africa.
Tajudeen said the continent was falling behind its target of deploying two million community health workers by 2030, noting that African leaders adopted the target in 2016 but had achieved barely 50 per cent of it.
He identified recurring infectious disease outbreaks, declining international development assistance for health and inadequate operational readiness of primary healthcare facilities as major challenges facing the continent.
He recalled that the African Union Assembly called for renewed political action in 2025, leading to the appointment of President Tinubu as Champion for Human Resources for Health and the Community Health Delivery Partnership.
Tajudeen said Africa CDC was working with the African Union’s 55 member states and development partners to identify barriers to deploying community health workers and develop an acceleration plan.
He commended Nigeria for its efforts in primary healthcare, community health systems and universal health coverage, as well as its response to the Ebola outbreak.
“We have so much to learn from Nigeria,” he said.
