The African Digital Health Equity Roadmap (ADHER) aims to address gender disparities in digital health access across Africa, focusing on empowering women in the sector. The roadmap aims to strengthen leadership skills and increase visibility, ensuring women’s voices are considered in shaping health policies and innovations. It directly benefits African women in digital health, setting a foundation for broader community health access through enhanced leadership and expertise. The roadmap addresses technical, infrastructural, socio-cultural, institutional, and financial barriers historically preventing women from assuming their rightful roles as leaders and participants in the digital health space. It guides governments, international organizations, NGOs, private sector partners, grassroots movements, and communities to promote digital health equity in Africa.

Areas of Action

Infrastructure Development: Strengthening digital health infrastructure to achieve equitable healthcare access across Africa, focusing on internet connectivity and digital platforms.

Policy and Governance: Establish inclusive, transparent, and accountable policy and governance frameworks that ensure equitable access, ethical use, and sustainable implementation of digital health solutions, focusing on addressing the needs of underserved populations and promoting gender equity in health systems.

Capacity building and workforce development: Develop a skilled, gender-equitable, and digitally enabled health workforce by providing targeted training, fostering leadership, and creating opportunities for continuous learning, ensuring the effective implementation and sustainability of digital health solutions.

Community engagement and empowerment: Actively engage communities in digital health initiatives and empower women and underserved populations through digital health tools.

Data and research: Enhance the generation, analysis, and utilization of inclusive and disaggregated health data to inform evidence-based policies, drive innovation, and ensure equitable access to digital health solutions.

Adequate funding and resource allocation are critical to achieving the objectives of the African Digital Health Equity Roadmap through blended financing, digital health trust funds, public-private partnerships and international support.

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Ultimately, the successful implementation of this roadmap depends on the collective commitment of all stakeholders, including governments, international organizations, the private sector, and civil society. Each stakeholder must play a pivotal role in ensuring the roadmap’s objectives are met, particularly in advancing gender equity and empowering women in digital health.

We urge all African Union Member States to prioritise integrating digital health solutions into their national health strategies, focusing on inclusivity and sustainability. International partners are encouraged to provide the necessary financial and technical support. At the same time, the private sector is urged to invest in innovative solutions that will drive digital health equity across the continent.