A Catalytic Solution: Empower Community Health Workers and Leaders by Leveraging Digital Technology

It’s time for a collision between the community health & education revolutions. Help us create a global platform to train, empower & connect community health workers.

The Problem

Over 8.9 million preventable deaths occur annually amongst children and families primarily in 73 low- and middle-income countries. Though health workers are uniquely positioned to meet this need, there is an acute shortage–-a gap that will grow to 18 million by 2030. Studies show training high-performing community health workers (CHWs) can help close these gaps, saving more than 3 million lives annually. But plagued by ineffective training and limited systems support, too many CHW programs have failed to meet their full potential. The Community Health Academy will address this urgent "quality crisis" in community health.

The Solution

The Community Health Academy is supporting Ministries of Health to digitize their national curricula, equipping CHWs with high-quality digital education materials. It is also creating a global classroom, providing free, open, university-quality courses taught by and for community health systems leaders - online and face-to-face - to improve the quality of national community health systems. By leveraging the power of digital training tools, the Community Health Academy will enable Ministries of Health to empower and connect over 30,000 CHWs and health systems leaders by 2021, serving millions of people across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Stage of Development

  • Early Stage
  • Established Prototype
  • Scaling
  • Other

Organization to Receive Funds

Last Mile Health

This project was nominated by: