The African Women in Digital Health (AWiDH) movement was officially launched during the 2nd Annual International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA 2022), in December 2022 under the leadership Africa CDC with support from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Digital Health Network, IntraHealth, UNICEF the Ministry of Health and Social action of Senegal, Path and Qhala. Subsequently, a working group was put together to co-create the AWiDH flagship campaign of the Digital Transformation Strategy of Africa CDC as well as its action plan.

The main objective of the movement is to address the digital gender gap through a multidisciplinary platform bringing together stakeholders working on health issues to ensure effective collaboration and coordination for women’s meaningful engagement and leadership in digital health.

The movement relies on three strategic objectives:

1. Capacity building: Increasing skill set by addressing digital capacity building needs for women to build a strong pipeline of talent.
2. Enabling environment: Supporting the enabling environment for women entrepreneurship in digital health.
3. Investment: Ensuring adequate investment for women entrepreneurs in the tech digital health space.

Specifically, AWiDH expects to:

• Establish a network to amplify African women’s voices in digital health.
• Launch mentorship programs to support emerging women leaders and entrepreneurs in digital health.
• Develop a roadmap for member states to incorporate gender in digital health