Meaningful Youth Engagement for Sustainable Health Security in Africa

Today, the Youth Pre-Conference to the 2022 International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA 2022), organised by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) kicks off in Kigali, Rwanda. As a new preface of the annual gathering, the conference provides a unique opening for collaborative, open and inclusive space for young public health professionals to critically reflect on the current state of public health in Africa, share perspectives on the role of young people in public health, and reflect on the prospects for enhancing meaningful youth engagement for improved health outcomes.

Meaningful youth engagement in public health policy and practice is fundamental, particularly in Africa, given the continent's burgeoning youth population. I daresay that the future trajectory of Africa's health security is in the hands of its current and emerging young public health professionals, health advocates, and policymakers. Therefore, every effort geared towards achieving the new public health order must be co-led and co-owned by today's and tomorrow's young health leaders. Opportunities must be created for young people to strengthen their understanding of the geopolitical dynamics and politics of global health governance that implicates Africa's health transformation. Africa's youth must be equipped to play a pivotal role in affirming Africa's place in global health architecture. Their interpretative understanding of Africa's peculiar public health challenges must be strengthened to be able to confidently co-lead the charge for realising sustainable health security in Africa.

The African continent has already set for itself ambitious goals in Agenda 2063, Africa Health Strategy, and now the New Public Health Order. Attaining all the lofty aspirations in these policy documents will require a new paradigm that engages ambitiously and strategically with the youth demographic on the continent. The meaningful engagement of the African youth is an unmissable pathway to the accomplishment of these transformative agendas by Africa. Consequently, we must invest in transformative and inclusive health systems built on the foundations of efficient public health management all over the continent. Realizing this within the framework of a New Public Health Order places young people's perspectives, needs, interests and abilities at the center of the discourse on transforming health systems in Africa.

Equally important are the critical lessons from Ebola and COVID-19 on the role of community engagement in any successful response strategy. Africa's young public health advocates sit at the intersection of science, technology, policy, and community engagement. We must therefore expand our prevention, preparedness, and response architecture to build on the mobilisation capacities, energies, and creative abilities of, amongst others, young community health workers, researchers, and health innovators. We must leverage our training institutions and provide an opportunity for regular inter and intra-generation exchanges, dialogues, and interactions to encourage the cross-fertilisation of ideas while deepening solidarity and close ties in true pan-African fashion. Advancements that have been made over the last decade, many also occasioned by the global response to COVID-19, need to be mainstreamed into the educational systems on the continent. Universities must address gaps in their curriculum and expand the horizon for young medical and public health students and researchers.

For us to achieve scale in implementing our continental public health agenda, the next generation of Africa's public health scientists and researchers must be encouraged and incentivized to take up leadership roles within the framework of the New Public Health Order. This is why the institutionalization of the youth pre-conference on the margins of the CPHIA is no doubt an essential investment in Africa's health security. Providing such space for the next generation of public health leaders will help to transfer knowledge, amplify youth-led innovations, and help to sustain current efforts. Although it is tagged a youth pre-conference, it is undoubtedly an incubation of the next generation of pan-African global health leaders like Tedros Adhanom, John Nkengasong, Winnie Byanyima, Matsidisho Moeti, Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, Ebere Okereke, Githinji Githai, Alex Coutinho amongst many others.

At the German Cooperation project on Strengthening Crisis and Pandemic Response in Africa, we firmly believe there is no better time to elevate the conversation about meaningful youth engagement in Africa's health security than now. It is hoped that the conversations over the two days of the pre-conference and those at the CPHIA 2022 will give the much-needed impetus to this new paradigm of a youth-centred New Public Health Order.

This paradigm must prioritise the potential transformative contributions of young people to building strong, resilient and innovative health institutions at all levels and enhancing the health workforce capacity on the continent. In addition, as the continent targets 60% local vaccine manufacturing alongside other medical products on the continent, the role of young people in research and innovation must be advanced. We must build the capacity for local vaccine, therapeutics and diagnostics manufacturing on the back of the continent's young researchers and research institutions within the frame of a reimagined African health security. Young policymakers and health diplomats must be imbued with the confidence and knowledge to own their place in global health discourse and engage boldly for respectful and action-oriented partnerships for improved public health outcomes.

The continent is at a critical crossroad, which presents an opportunity to rethink, renew and re-dedicate to the implementation of policies that factor in the youthful demographic strength of the continent both in public health policy and practice.