This Continental Acceleration Plan translates the African Union’s commitment to 2 million Community Health Workers by 2030 into a costed, differentiated and accountable roadmap for Member States, Africa Union Commission, Africa CDC, Regional Economic Communities and partners. Every Community Health Worker recruited, trained, deployed, remunerated and supported is an investment in Africa’s collective health security and sovereignty.

The Continental Acceleration Plan is a comprehensive, multi-sectoral framework designed to bridge the gap between current community health worker deployment and the 2030 target of 2 million, reaffirmed by the AU Ministers of Health and Finance Communiqué of 13 February 2026. As of May 2026, deployment stood at 1,059,085 Community Health Workers against the AU’s commitment of 2 million by 2030 across all 55 Member States.

The Plan is anchored in a two-scenario framework: the Base Scenario, the AU’s reaffirmed political commitment of 2 million Community Health Workers by 2030 across all 55 Member States, and the Ambitious Scenario, the bottom-up sum of Member States’ own reported 2030 deployment plans. Both scenarios are set out in full in Chapter 2, and the date the Ambitious Scenario is projected to cross the 2 million mark is around November 2029.

However, achieving the 2030 target requires simultaneous action across eight interconnected strategic pillars, deeply integrated with the broader multi-cadre health workforce. Community Health Workers are the vital foundation for Africa’s Health Security and Sovereignty, but their full impact depends on the seamless integration of Community Health Workers within the multi-cadre workforce of nurses, physicians, and midwives, standardised around a polyvalent Community Health Worker cadre equipped to deliver the Standardized Essential Service Package at the community level.