In October 2025, digital health leaders from 33 African countries came together during the 4th  Africa Health Tech Summit in Kigali to advance the continent’s health data governance ambitions, transforming earlier foundations into giant steps forward towards the African Continental Health Data Governance Framework. Fueled by Africa CDC, to empower, strengthen and support African Union Member States in co-creating a Continental Framework, and supported by partners such as Transform Health and Health Informatics in Africa (HELINA), this ambition has taken root over the past several months, notably during:

• A government roundtable on the margins of the African Union Summit of February 2025 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which helped lay the foundation for a continent-wide engagement;
• A session during the Africa Health ExCon meetings  in June 2026 in Cairo, Egypt, which officially set forward a commitment from Africa CDC to take forward the development of the Health Data Governance Framework, honing the ambitions of the continent; and
• A two-day workshop in Gaborone, Botswana, where digital health leaders from 21 countries adopted the major pillars for the framework.

This impressive progress over recent months builds on ongoing engagement with governments and partners, in particular under the ambition of the Africa CDC Flagship Initiative on health data governance and partner support.

The Africa CDC Flagship Initiative on Health Data Governance

The Flagship Initiative was officially launched two years ago during the 2023 Africa Health Tech Summit, as one of the pillars of Africa CDC’s Digital Transformation Strategy, toward the Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want. Transform Health (a global coalition of 215+ organisations driving the digital transformation of  health to achieve universal health coverage), together with HELINA (the Pan African Health Informatics Association), have been co-chairing the Flagship Initiative with Africa CDC since its inception.

The objectives of the Flagship are threefold:

• Continental Framework on Health Data Governance: Develop, endorse and popularise a continental framework to build country consensus around a set of legislative standards for health data governance, which would support governments in strengthening national legislation;
• Resources, tools and technical support to governments to assess and strengthen legislation and regulations relevant to the governance of health data and identify areas that need to be strengthened; and 
• Convening stakeholders and discussions to foster collaboration, implementation and knowledge towards the development of a Continental Framework.

Progress and  contributions of the flagship to regional and global health data governance

• The Model Law is now available.  Built on the Health Data Governance Principles, the flagship was pivotal in ensuring that the model law was inclusive, gender responsive and multistakeholder. National consultations, dialogues and engagements were held in Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Senegal, Zambia, and Côte d’Ivoire.
• National HDG landscape reports have been realised, helping at least 24 countries understand their existing frameworks and ecosystems, in readiness for a better governance
• A legislative and regulatory assessment tool has been realised,  and is now available for use to countries .
• An implementation guide for the model law is now also available for use to countries

Way forward for the African Continental Health Data Governance Framework

Transform Health, Africa CDC, HELINA and the partners and members of the HDG flagship are hard at work to ensure that the draft African Continental Health Data Governance Framework sets out the ambition of AU Member States and sets most African nations off to a stronger and more sustainable and robust health data economy that guarantees safety, security, privacy, and sovereignty to Africa, as was announced in the just-concluded Africa Health Tech Summit  by Dr Tajudeen Raji, Deputy Director General of Africa CDC.

A lot has been accomplished by Transform Health, Africa CDC and the partners of the Health Data Governance Flagship. However, there is much more to do. Sustainable health data governance requires frameworks that are implemented, monitored, and regularly reviewed.

Beyond Africa, bringing continental leadership to the global state at the World Health Assembly

Kigali, Rwanda played host to more than 3000 digital health leaders from 92 countries in October, with health data governance being a major topic on the agenda. More indepth work was done by the stakeholders to ensure that the continental framework will be truly African, inclusive, gender mainstreamed and youth-facing. But beyond the progress and leadership in Africa, there is a clear ambition to put the issue on the table of world leaders to drive discussions towards a global agreement among member states of the World Health Organisation. Transform Health supports this ambition and  lends its voice to the inclusion of health data governance on the agenda of #WHA2026

The health data governance space will be one to watch in 2026!