As he officially opened the 25th Annual Conference of the Association of Medical Councils of Africa #AMCOA2023 in Kigali, Dr Sabin Nsanzimana, Minister of Health, urged participants from African countries to lead discussions to find solutions to the problems facing the continent today.

In his speech, Dr Sabin Nsanzimana identified three key areas that medical councils need to seriously consider in order to put Africa on a strong footing in advancing the health for all agenda:

"We have the lowest ratio of health workers per thousand people compared to other continents," said Dr Sabin Nsanzimana. "I urge you to help our countries revise the way we train health workers to produce them in large numbers without compromising the quality of their training," he added.

The WHO recommendation is to have at least four health workers per thousand people. Only Libya, Botswana and South Africa have met this recommendation. Rwanda has one health worker per thousand people. The Minister gave the Council a homework assignment to catalyse change in countries' efforts to develop infrastructure, equipment, human resources and strengthen health systems in general to enable the remaining African countries to achieve this goal.

Another shift that Africa needs to embrace is the use of technology solutions to improve the delivery of medical services. Minister Nsanzimana urged Africa's medical councils to embrace technology and make it a blueprint for the services that will be delivered on the continent with the next generation: "As you review standards, medical schools and hospitals should put technology at a rightful place and push to another level of practice in the delivery of care, in the tools we use and in how we train the next generations of health care providers," he said.

Finally, Minister Sabin Nsanzimana urged the councils to work together and share their experiences. "Your neighbour may have a solution to the problem you are still struggling with. Build healthy networks of cooperation," he advised.

The #AMCOA2023 conference has attracted 200 delegates from more than 15 African countries to discuss team-based care and regulation to achieve universal healthcare. Speaking at the conference, AMCOA President Prof Simon Nemutandani believes that the time has come for Africa to rise up and improve the lives of its people. "The public healthcare system is under severe strain and it is incumbent upon us as diverse healthcare professionals to change the trajectory of how African healthcare systems are and instead focus on how they should be," reads part of his welcome note.