More than 80 young health professionals, researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and higher education representatives have proposed nine reforms aimed at strengthening the role of young Africans in shaping the continent’s health systems.
The recommendations emerged from Ubuntu Rising 2026, a youth-focused health dialogue convened by the Africa Health Collaborative and hosted by the University of Cape Town ahead of the 18th World Congress on Public Health.
The forum was designed to move beyond conventional consultation by giving young people a direct platform to identify practical changes needed to improve Africa’s health sector and expand opportunities for its growing youth population.
The recommendations, which cover leadership, innovation and employment, are expected to contribute to the Africa Health Collaborative’s Youth Agenda and influence its future programmes, partnerships and engagements across the continent.
The discussions came against the backdrop of a major employment paradox facing young Africans, particularly in a continent where the health sector is simultaneously struggling with severe workforce shortages and limited employment opportunities for trained professionals.
Figures from the Mastercard Foundation’s Africa Youth Employment Outlook 2026, cited by Prof. Brandon Collier-Reed during the event, showed that 90 per cent of employed young Africans work in the informal economy, while only 10 per cent occupy formal jobs.
The report also indicated that 34 per cent of employed young Africans live in households below the $2.15-a-day poverty line, while only nine per cent have completed tertiary education.
The health workforce situation presents another dimension of the challenge. According to the WHO Regional Office for Africa’s Health Workforce Reports 2024 and 2025, cited during the dialogue, Africa faces a shortage of about 5.5 million health workers.
At the same time, nearly one million trained health professionals across the continent are reportedly without meaningful employment, highlighting what participants described as a disconnect between training, employment and the needs of health systems.
Collier-Reed, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning at the University of Cape Town, said the continent needed to reconsider how it measures progress in youth employment and development.
“Employment, on its own, is not the goal we should be measuring ourselves against,” he said, stressing that the more fundamental question was whether existing systems were creating opportunities that worked for young Africans.
He argued that attention should extend beyond the number of young people trained or employed to the institutional structures determining whether their skills, ideas and capabilities can contribute meaningfully to society.
A central theme of the dialogue was therefore the need to give young people greater influence in leadership and decision-making within health institutions, rather than limiting their participation to consultations or symbolic representation.
Dr. Nathina Pakade, Public Health Medicine Registrar at the University of Cape Town and the Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness, said meaningful youth participation required more than simply inviting young people into discussions.
“There is a difference between asking young people what they think and giving them a meaningful role in deciding what happens next,” Pakade said, advocating greater opportunities for young people to influence decisions affecting the future of Africa’s health systems.
Participants also identified innovation and entrepreneurship as critical areas for reform, arguing that Africa’s young population should be positioned not only as beneficiaries of health programmes but also as innovators and problem-solvers capable of developing solutions to the continent’s health challenges.
Employment was another major focus, with the discussions highlighting the need to create dignified and sustainable opportunities that can bridge the gap between health training and actual jobs while strengthening health systems at the same time.
Prof. Tracey Naledi, Deputy Dean for Social Accountability and Health Systems at the University of Cape Town and host of Ubuntu Rising, said young Africans should have a role in creating the systems they would eventually inherit.
She said the Africa Health Collaborative was increasingly moving from youth participation and consultation towards co-creation, with young people helping to shape programmes and initiatives while older institutions provide support.
The nine recommendations developed at Ubuntu Rising will now feed into the Collaborative’s Youth Agenda and are expected to inform its programming, partnerships and engagement with Africa’s wider health ecosystem.
The Africa Health Collaborative is a multi-year partnership focused on strengthening primary healthcare systems across Africa through health workforce development, education, innovation and entrepreneurship, while contributing to the Mastercard Foundation’s Young Africa Works strategy of enabling 30 million young people, particularly women, to access dignified and fulfilling work by 2030.
