FG targets 100,000 salaried community health workers by 2027

By Chesa Chesa

The Federal Government is targeting 100,000 salaried community health workers by 2027 as part of efforts to strengthen primary healthcare delivery and improve workers’ welfare, says Vice-President Kashim Shettima.

Shettima said the administration of President Bola Tinubu was committed to ensuring that community health workers enjoy legal recognition, certification, dependable salaries, professional supervision and career progression.

He spoke on Thursday in Abuja at the launch of the Community Health Programme Continental Acceleration Plan 2026–2030 during the Continental High-Level Forum on a Fit-for-Purpose Health Workforce.

The Vice President said Nigeria could not afford to neglect community health workers, whose services were critical to disease surveillance, maternal healthcare, immunisation and the early detection of outbreaks.

“We cannot afford the luxury of taking our community health workers for granted,” he said.

According to him, community health workers play a vital role in identifying maternal health risks, locating unvaccinated children, gathering household data and detecting disease outbreaks.

Shettima said the distance between a household and a health worker could determine whether a patient survived, stressing the need for governments to expand access to healthcare, particularly in underserved communities.

He described Tinubu as a pace-setter in financing health reforms and advancing Africa’s health workforce agenda, noting that Nigeria had accepted its responsibility to strengthen community healthcare.

The Vice President disclosed that Nigeria’s community health workforce remained below the estimated 315,000 workers required by 2030. He said the administration’s Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative had secured more than $2.2 billion in commitments, with programmes to revitalise over 17,000 primary healthcare centres and train 120,000 frontline health workers.

Shettima also expressed concern over declining external health financing, noting that 85 per cent of countries depended heavily on donors for community health services.

He said the continental acceleration plan prioritised governance, integration of primary healthcare, workforce development, digital systems, service delivery, financing, medical supplies and accountability.

The plan, he added, envisaged an investment of about $28 billion through 2030, with more than 80 per cent allocated to recurrent expenditure. It also projected economic and social benefits of $19 for every dollar invested.

Earlier, the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Kunle Salako, said the launch of the continental plan reflected Nigeria’s commitment to strengthening primary healthcare and expanding the community health workforce across Africa.

Egypt’s Deputy Minister of Health for Population and Family Development, Dr Abla Al-Alfi, called for stronger primary healthcare systems and greater empowerment of community health workers to improve maternal and family health outcomes.

Also speaking, the Deputy Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Dr Raji Tajudeen, said Africa was falling behind its target of deploying two million community health workers by 2030.

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