In many low- and middle-income countries, national digital health teams face a familiar reality: fragmented systems, overlapping applications and growing pressure to support health workers with reliable, actionable data.
Addressing these systemic challenges requires more than technology adoption; it demands strategic leadership, coordinated governance and a long-term national vision. To accelerate progress, the WHO Academy, in collaboration with the International Organisation of la Francophonie (OIF), delivered a 12-week Digital Health: Planning for National Systems course, bringing together participants from across French-speaking countries in the African and the Eastern Mediterranean regions.
To accelerate this shift from fragmented tools to integrated national systems, the programme provided not only technical knowledge but also a structured pathway for countries to rethink their digital health foundations. With a 91% satisfaction rate, the training helped countries begin transforming their digital health ecosystems through deeper understanding, collaborative learning and practical application.
The diversity of participating countries enriched the exchange, ensuring that lessons were tested against varied institutional, technical and political realities. Sixty digital health leaders from 16 French-speaking countries joined the course: Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, the Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Gabon, Lebanon, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Togo and Tunisia, each bringing the distinct realities of their national health systems. Across these countries, digital health solutions have multiplied, often developed for specific diseases or programmes.
As Kossi Anani, a data scientist and participant from Togo, explained: "We use one tracker for tuberculosis, another for HIV, one for vaccination and another for seasonal malaria chemoprevention. Without a more integrated approach, we risk accumulating isolated and non-interoperable tools."
For others, the challenge was not only fragmentation but misalignment with health priorities. “The course responds in a relevant and practical way to the digital health challenges in my country by providing a strategic vision, useful tools and a structured approach,” said Boualem Bendjedia, ICT Assistant, WHO Algeria.
These voices reflect a shared understanding that strong digital health systems require coordinated planning, clear governance and solutions rooted in national realities.
To translate shared reflections into practical capacity-strengthening, the course combined structured learning with applied national projects. Over 12 weeks, the cohort completed 12 hours of self-paced learning, 12 live sessions focused on discussion, peer exchange and group work and a final country-focused project that applied course concepts to real priorities.
The curriculum covered the foundations of digital transformation, including health systems, national strategy development, enterprise architecture, governance, costing, procurement, digital financial services and future trends.
Learners emphasized how the course helped make complex concepts accessible and immediately applicable. Kossi noted that the training showed how to transition from multiple standalone applications to integrated, sustainable and interoperable national platforms.
Boualem highlighted how the approach helped address governance gaps: “It strengthened awareness of the need to work in a structured and systematic way and to involve stakeholders from the outset to ensure ownership and sustainability.”
Throughout the programme, participants began applying new skills to national initiatives ranging from telemedicine and unique patient identifiers to real-time data platforms.
