In this blog post, I wanted to highlight some issues African women in the public health space face and I also will highlight some African Women Public Health Women leaders. Gender equity is an important part to ensure health outcomes for individuals on the continent. In particular, it is important to ensure gender equity in spaces where public health decisions are made.
Almost all African countries have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence and more than half of the countries have ratified the African Union Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa which is also known as the Maputo Protocol. On March 19, 2021, President Samia Suluhu Hassan was sworn in as President of the United Republic of Tanzania. She is one of two African Women Presidents that are currently in office. President Sahle-Work Zewde of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is the second, although, in Ethiopia, the highest federal executive power remains with the prime minister.
Having women in leadership positions ensures that our voices can be heard at high-level agenda meetings. This reminds me of a question posed by a panelist at the 2023 Harvard’s Africa Health Conference. There was a session titled “Women in Leadership", where panelist Fatou Wurie posed "How do we shift power in public health and ensure that African women partake in agenda-setting?" This is a critical question to ask, as we discuss Africa’s New Public Health Order and as we make sure it secures all members of the population’s health needs. There should be no discrimination to access health services by gender identity, sexual orientation, people living with chronic health conditions, people with disabilities, or any other reason.
African women play a key role in health emergencies through their dual role in households and in health centers. At the 2022 Conference of Public Health in Africa in Kigali, Rwanda, Ms. Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director, stated that women are not represented in spaces of policy making and planning and budgeting for healthcare. Their lived experiences are not present in spaces that impact their ability to receive healthcare services.
What does the data say about gender inequities on the continent?
Participation in the health workforce: A WHO (2019) working paper indicates that in the WHO African region, 28% of physicians are women while 65% of nurses are women. A major contributor to this is education. UNESCO states that the number of women entering higher education in 'sub-Saharan Africa' has increased but there is still a gender disparity as only 31.8% of science professionals in sub-Saharan Africa are women. UNESCO's definition of sub-Saharan Africa excludes these African countries: Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, and Mauritania. Here is a great read on why the term sub-Saharan Africa should not be used.
Violence against women in the healthcare workforce: It has been reported that there is higher violence against women in the workplace. A systematic review only identified 4 articles that discuss gender differences in prevalence with estimates ranging from 60.9% to 40.8% in women. The studies included are from Ethiopia, Egypt, and Nigeria. Not many studies on the African continent detail violence against healthcare workers and this is an area that needs further research.
Researcher positions: A study published in 2022, identifies some of the main barriers for West African women in research. The countries included in the study are Ghana, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali. The 4 main themes identified are: (1) family- and environmental-related barriers, (2) gender insensitive organizational culture and institutional policies, (3) need for women in research to undergo emancipation programs to strengthen their resilience (4) individual intermediate perception of professional and personal success. These barriers contribute to why there are fewer women in research positions, especially senior positions.
While there is a lot of work that needs to be done to minimize health inequities on the continent, there are several examples of women doing great work in the public health space, which are highlighted below
Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi is a Ugandan epidemiologist and the Executive Director of the Africa Population Health Research Centre (APHRC) based in Nairobi, Kenya. APHRC is a research centre and a think tank with a vision to “transform lives in Africa through research.” Dr. Catherine is also the co-director of the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA), the Joep Lange Chair at the University of Amsterdam, and a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. She is also the lead author of a recently published article titled “From vaccine to visa apartheid, how anti-Blackness persists in global health.”
An event on this anti-Blackness in global health was also held at the APHRC which can be found below:
To read more about Dr. Catherine, click here.
Professor Address Malata is the Vice Chancellor of the Malawi University of Science and Technology. Professor Address is also a Virginia Henderson Fellow of Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) and an Adjunct Professor for Michigan State University. She is an advocate for empowering women and girls through education. She has worked to diversify undergraduate programs and increase the number of PhD's offered at Kamuzu College of Nursing.
Professor Malata is featured below on a Decolonizing Global Health event by Johns Hopkins University at 1:01:00.
To read more about Professor Malata, click here.
Professor Judith Torimiro is a Cameroonian professor and the Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Yaoundé I. At the University of Yaoundé I, Professor Judith facilitates the development of research capacity in molecular biology and recognizes the importance of retaining talent on the continent. Since returning to Cameron in 2005, all her research has been conducted in laboratories in Cameron. Her interests are driven by operational research, which is when advanced analytical methods are used to facilitate decision-making. Local capacity is key to being able to shift power imbalances in the global health space.
To read more about Professor Judith, click here.
Dr. Hend El Sherbini is an Egyptian entrepreneur and the CEO of Integrated Diagnostics Holdings (IDH), an Egyptian-based company. Dr. Hend is a clinical pathologist and turned one lab into the company IDH in 2004. IDH is a high-quality consumer healthcare provider in Africa and the Middle East. The company has 546 points of presence across Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, and Nigeria. IDH offers a variety of diagnostic tests such as those for cholesterol, diabetes, pregnancy, and radiology. The company’s assets are worth over $354.6 million and the company has an IPO on the London Stock Exchange. Dr. Hend has been featured in Lionesses of Africa, Forbes Middle East, and Forbes.
To learn more about Dr. Hend and her advice to other women, click here.
Dr. Magda Robalo is the former Minister of Public Health in Guinea-Bissau and helped to lead the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She is currently the Managing Director of Women in Global Health and the co-founder and president of the Institute of Global Health Development. She is also a mentor of the Kofi Annan Fellowship Program run by the Africa Centres Disease and Prevention Control (Africa CDC).
To learn more about Dr. Magda, click here.
If you are interested in hearing more about advancing gender inequity on the continent, check out the podcast episodes from the 2021 Faces of Africa Conference by the African Public Health Network at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. I helped to organize this conference and our theme for the conference was Advancing Gender Equity for Women in Africa: A Practical Approach. You can view our conference website here. We also released episodes from the sessions which can be listened to here. Below are some of the sessions I really enjoyed.
Opening Ceremony by the former African Union Commissioner of Social Affairs H.E. Mrs. Amira Elfadil Mohammed Elfadil.
A Fireside Chat on How I got here and navigating the public health field in Africa and the diaspora with Dr. Nicole Fouda Mbarga, Esther Soma, and Dr. Pauline Jolly.
A Fireside Chat on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights with Khudejha Asghar, Dr. Caroline Kabiru, and Dr. Ellen B. Peprah.
Further Reading
Female scientists in Africa are Changing the Face of the Continent (2022)
Opinion: African women are leading the fight against COVID-19 by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (2020)
These powerful African scientists are changing the world by Pauline Nguru and Guadalupe Casas (2018)