The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has urged Nigeria to turn its continental leadership in health workforce development into concrete action towards achieving the target of two million community health workers by 2030.

Dr Landry Dongmo Tsague, Director of Primary Health Care at Africa CDC, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on the sidelines of the State of Africa’s Health Workforce and Community Health 2026.

Dongmo Tsague said that the position of President Bola Tinubu as the African Union Champion for Human Resources for Health and Community Health Delivery Partnership provided an important platform for Nigeria to demonstrate leadership in strengthening community-based healthcare delivery.

He noted that Nigeria’s commitment should translate into at least five key actions, which include predictable domestic financing, stronger coordination among the three tiers of government and a measurable national implementation roadmap.

According to him, the country needs to integrate the costs of training, deployment, remuneration, supervision and provision of essential supplies for community health workers into national and sub-national budgets.

He explained that funding mechanisms, such as the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), could be leveraged, where appropriate, to support sustainable investment in the workforce.

The Africa CDC official also emphasised the need for stronger coordination among federal, state and local governments to ensure that workforce expansion was aligned with functional primary healthcare facilities, essential commodities and effective referral systems.

Such coordination, he asserted, would help ensure that community health workers were deployed according to the needs of underserved communities.

Dongmo Tsague called for a clear national roadmap outlining how Nigeria intended to expand and deploy its community health workforce by 2030.

“The roadmap should contain annual workforce expansion targets, clearly defined responsibilities and mechanisms for tracking implementation,” he said.

The Africa CDC also stressed the importance of formal integration of community health workers into the national health workforce through appropriate recognition, remuneration, competency-based training, supportive supervision and structured career progression.

On Nigeria’s continental leadership role, he said the country could use its position to encourage other African countries to develop cost national acceleration plans and regularly report progress against agreed indicators.

He added that development partners should align their financing with government-led priorities to ensure coordinated interventions and sustainability.

According to him, measurable commitments should include annual workforce deployment targets, budgetary allocations, the number of community health workers trained and remunerated, progress in formal workforce integration and regular public reporting.

“The measurable commitments should include annual workforce deployment targets, budget allocations, numbers of community health workers trained and remunerated, progress in formal workforce integration, and regular public reporting on implementation,” he said.

He said Nigeria’s leadership would be significant if it demonstrated how political commitment could translate into adequately financed national action while providing lessons for other African countries.

He added that African countries would need to adapt their implementation strategies to their respective national circumstances while working towards the shared continental target of two million community health workers by 2030.