By Mohamed Abdi - Reporter
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Somalia, 7 April, 2026 The government of Somalia on Tuesday launched a national Community Health Strategy aimed at expanding access to primary healthcare services and strengthening delivery in remote and underserved areas.
The Somalia Community Health Strategy 2025–2029, unveiled by the Federal Ministry of Health in collaboration with partners including UNICEF, World Health Organization and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, seeks to unify and professionalize the country’s fragmented community health system.
Speaking at the launch in Mogadishu, Health Minister, Ali Haji Adam Abubakar, said the initiative marks a shift toward a single, government-led system designed to reach every household.
“For too long, community health in Somalia has been fragmented… Today, we begin a new chapter: one health system, one workforce, and one coordinated approach,” he said.
Somalia continues to face high maternal and child mortality rates, low immunization coverage, malnutrition, and recurring disease outbreaks, challenges exacerbated by limited access to functioning primary health facilities in rural and hard-to-reach regions.
Under the new strategy, the government plans to establish a standardized national cadre of female community health workers, who will be salaried, trained, and deployed to deliver essential services at the community level, including maternal and newborn care, nutrition support, disease prevention, and referrals to health facilities.
The reform also aims to harmonize the roles of community health volunteers, strengthen supervision systems, improve supply chains, and introduce digital reporting tools to enhance data collection and coordination across the health system.
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UNICEF Somalia’s officer-in-charge, Nisar Syed, said the strategy would help bring essential services closer to families and strengthen links between communities and the health system.
“Investing in community health is one of the most powerful investments Somalia can make for children and their families,” he said.
WHO representative in Somalia Kamil Mohamed Ali said the initiative would improve early disease detection and access to primary care, while Africa CDC Director General Jean Kaseya described the launch as a step toward building a resilient, government-led health system.
The government said the strategy will be implemented in phases, beginning with system-building measures such as workforce mapping, training standardization, and deployment planning, before scaling nationwide in later stages.
Authorities and partners said the plan is also intended to reduce fragmentation caused by multiple parallel programs run by international agencies and non-governmental organizations, replacing them with a unified national framework.
The strategy is part of broader efforts by Somalia to progress toward universal health coverage and strengthen health system resilience through coordinated financing, governance, and service delivery reforms.