The University of Cape Town’s (UCT) contributions to the Africa Health Collaborative convening raised an important question that cuts across workforce development and entrepreneurship: Are we preparing young people for opportunity, and building the conditions that allow them to use it?
Training a young health professional does not guarantee that a health system will employ or retain them. Helping an entrepreneur develop an innovation does not guarantee that their business will survive. Introducing digital tools into community care raises questions about who will use them, how they will improve services and whether the skills developed will lead to work.
These connections between individual capability and institutional opportunity ran through UCT’s participation in the 2026 Africa Health Collaborative (AHC) Annual Convening in Nairobi, Kenya.
Hosted by Amref International University from 17 to 23 October 2026, the gathering brought together universities, government representatives, entrepreneurs and emerging leaders under the theme: “Africa unlocked: Co-creating impactful and sustainable youth-led health innovations”.
For Healthy Futures South Africa (HFSA), UCT’s implementation of the Mastercard Foundation-supported Collaborative, the gathering provided an opportunity to examine what programme experience can teach us about building pathways between learning, livelihoods and better health.
What makes staying possible?
One of the convening’s most direct examinations of this challenge came during “Stay or Go”, a formal debate on Africa’s health workforce migration. Dr Nathina Pakade, a public health medicine registrar at UCT and the Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness, participated in the debate on Tuesday, 20 October. Speaking for the proposition, she addressed the tension between the ambition to strengthen African health systems and the conditions experienced by the professionals expected to build them.
“We can’t ignore the tension of the reality that our healthcare workers are in,” she said.
Her contribution invites a more demanding discussion of retention. If young professionals are to build their futures within African health systems, what must those systems offer in return? Training, working conditions, career progression and opportunities to contribute all become part of the same conversation.
Dr Pakade also participated in Emerging Leaders’ Day on Saturday, 17 October. Her subsequent contribution to the debate illustrated why emerging professionals need a place in workforce discussions: they bring direct experience of the decisions institutions are trying to influence.
Health innovation beyond the clinic
The entrepreneurial showcases brought a related question into focus: Where does health innovation happen?
For Katlego Lawrence Motlogelwa, founder of Connctd, one answer lies in making mental health support easier to access. Showcasing his venture on Sunday, 18 October, he presented a platform combining anonymous peer-support chats and forums with trained counsellors, secure online counselling and therapy with registered professionals, as well as life and career coaching. Workshops and tools drawing on cognitive behavioural therapy, stress management and mindfulness extend that support into everyday well-being.
“Supporting such businesses requires institutions to recognise opportunities that extend across conventional sector boundaries that facilitate health and well-being.”
Andile Buhlebuvele Xaba, founder of City Green Urban Farms, approached health through food access. His venture operates a 2 500 m² urban farm in Durban’s central business district, producing fresh food using agroecological principles. Growing produce including tomatoes, kale, onions, okra, herbs and mushrooms, the venture aims to make nutritious food accessible and affordable to low- and middle-income communities.
Placed alongside each another, these HFSA-supported ventures address not only access to health services but also social determinants of health that ensure populations prevent disease. Their work connects health with digital access, emotional support, food affordability and the use of urban space. Supporting such businesses requires institutions to recognise opportunities that extend across conventional sector boundaries that facilitate health and well-being.
Learning from what implementation reveals
This year’s emphasis on learning products created space to examine these institutional questions through programme experience. Through presentations and posters, HFSA shared learning from CHAMP community health digitisation, the Health Entrepreneurship Academy, participatory action research, and efforts to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Each contribution addressed a different part of the pathway between developing capability and creating opportunity.
The CHAMP learning product explored how digitising community care can connect service needs with skills development and opportunities for young people. The Health Entrepreneurship Academy contribution examined longer-term support for young people who are unemployed, not studying or receiving any training.
“We can’t ignore the tension of the reality that our healthcare workers are in.”
The entrepreneurial ecosystem work extended the focus to the relationships and support surrounding a venture. An entrepreneur’s progress depends partly on what they can do, and partly on whether they can access the networks, guidance and resources their business requires. UCT’s participatory action research contribution brought community knowledge into this picture. Through learning circles and learning forums, communities, practitioners and institutional partners participate in identifying challenges and shaping responses.
These approaches raise a practical test for programme design: How well do the opportunities being developed connect with the people, services and communities they are intended to benefit?
Connecting learning with public systems
Dr Lizette Phillips, chief director of Rural Health Services; and Dr Johanna Van Schalkwyk, paediatrician and healthcare manager – both from the Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness – accompanied the UCT delegation. Their participation reflects the importance of government partners learning alongside HFSA and contributing public health service perspectives to the discussions. Dr Phillips brought these perspectives into the ministerial conversation, “Building Africa’s future health workforce: Leadership, investment, and the next generation”, highlighting the importance of employee well-being, a culture of belonging and intentional succession planning for young health professionals.
Her participation connected the convening’s discussions with the public systems in which workforce and service delivery decisions must take effect. It also reflected the government–university collaboration underpinning HFSA’s work.
Across UCT’s contributions, a common challenge emerged. Young people are being asked to develop skills, innovate and help transform health. Universities, governments and programme partners must examine whether the pathways around them make those expectations achievable, and how these pathways can be embedded in institutional practice, public systems and sustainable funding arrangements so that opportunities endure beyond HFSA’s funding period.
The question for institutions is therefore concrete: When a young person is ready to contribute, what happens next?
Source: www.news.uct.ac.za
