Vice President Kashim Shettima on Thursday in Abuja restated the determination of the Tinubu administration to secure legal recognition, certification, and salary reliability for community health workers across Nigeria.

This was as he launched a continental acceleration plan aimed at deploying two million community health workers across Africa by 2030.

Shettima spoke at the Continental High-Level Forum on a Fit-for-Purpose Health Workforce, where he launched the Community Health Programme Continental Acceleration Plan 2026–2030.

Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Communications, Stanley Nkwocha, revealed details of the engagement in a statement signed Thursday titled, ‘Guaranteed Legal Rights, Reliable Salaries for Community Health Workers In Sight, Says VP Shettima.’

The Vice President said Nigeria could not afford to take its community health workers for granted, warning that the distance between a household and a health worker could become the distance between survival and mourning.

“Our Community Health Programme Continental Acceleration Plan focuses on governance, primary care integration, workforce development, digital systems, service delivery, financing, supplies and accountability as drivers of our future, a future where workers are guaranteed legal recognition, certification, dependable salaries, supervision and careers,” he declared.

Shettima said it was the duty of government to shorten that distance “until no African’s chance of living depends on the accident of where they were born.”

He noted that President Bola Tinubu had been a pacesetter in financing health reform and advancing Africa’s workforce agenda as an African Union Champion for Human Resources for Health and Community Health Delivery Partnership, recalling that Nigeria’s Ministers of Health and Finance had convened a meeting in Addis Ababa in February on behalf of the President.

Twenty-five years after the Abuja Declaration pledged at least 15 per cent of national budgets to health, Shettima said Nigeria must answer for every household still beyond the reach of healthcare.

Shettima said, “We cannot afford the luxury of taking our community health workers for granted. We have survived the storms of a world threatened by diseases because they recognise maternal danger, because they find unvaccinated children, because they gather household data and, very importantly, because they detect outbreaks.”

He acknowledged that the world was facing difficult conditions, noting that external health financing was shrinking while 85 per cent of member states depend heavily on donors for community health. Nigeria, he said, had accepted its responsibility and was aware that its community health workforce fell short of the 315,000 workers required by 2030.

“This is why President Tinubu’s Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative has secured over $2.2bn in commitments, with programmes to revitalise over 17,000 primary health centres and train 120,000 frontline workers. Our goal is 100,000 salaried community health workers by 2027,” Shettima said.

On the Continental Acceleration Plan itself, the VP said it called for properly equipped health workers, reliable medical supplies, community participation, and integrated digital registries under African control.

He said the plan’s ambitious scenario required approximately $28bn through 2030, with over 80 per cent devoted to recurrent costs, and projected $19 in economic and social benefits for every dollar invested.

“These returns will be measured in healthier communities and lives saved. But they depend on sustained financing. Every country must therefore commit to one nationally owned plan, one budget and one monitoring framework,” he said.

Earlier, the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Kunle Salako, applauded President Tinubu’s approval to host the high-level forum, describing it as holding profound significance for the future of community healthcare delivery across the continent.

He said Nigeria’s implementation of key interventions reflected the President’s unwavering leadership as AU Champion for Human Resources for Health.

Salako added that the Acceleration Plan 2026–2030 aligned with the Renewed Hope Agenda, particularly its focus on strengthening disease surveillance and community resilience, and assured stakeholders that Nigeria remained fully committed to achieving the continental target.

For her part, 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 the Ministries of Social Solidarity and Youth to raise health awareness and reduce preventable maternal deaths.

“Our success depends on optimising primary healthcare and focusing on community health workers, who are essential for raising health awareness among mothers and families,” she said.

The Deputy Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Raji Tajudeen, called for stronger political commitment to community healthcare delivery across Africa, noting that the continent had achieved barely 50 per cent of its 2016 target to deploy two million community health workers by 2030.

He cited recurring infectious disease outbreaks, declining international development assistance, and inadequate operational readiness of primary healthcare facilities as major obstacles, among others.