According to the United Nations, only 12% of the Sustainable Development Goals targets are on track as we pass the halfway mark of the 2030 Agenda. As many as 37 countries on the African continent face health worker shortages. War, conflict, and human rights violations have displaced a staggering 110 million people, the highest figures ever recorded.
Given the growing complexity of these challenges, global leaders are leaning in to consider new approaches — how can we disrupt the status quo?
On the sidelines of the 78th session of the U.N. General Assembly, Pfizer partnered with Devex and Amref Health Africa, Africa’s largest nonprofit health and development organization, to host Champions of Change: Investing in Next Gen Global Health Leadership. The event, held at Pfizer’s New York City headquarters, explored solutions to these issues with a group particularly adept at challenging convention: young leaders.
Today, 90% of the world's 1.2 billion adolescents aged 10-19 years live in low- and middle-income countries. Across the African continent, a staggering 40% of people are under the age of 15 and only 3% are older than 65. More than a statistic, young people represent the key to community-led global health and development programs.
Through our conversations during UNGA 78, we sought to unearth what is driving this generation to strive for accelerated progress. These takeaways underscore why it is so important to foster multigenerational leadership and how it is shaping our approaches at The Pfizer Foundation.
Harnessing your ‘why’
Perhaps more than other recent generations, current emerging leaders are politically and socially active. Concerned by climate change and financial uncertainty, many young people feel they have no choice but to advocate for a cause.
At the Champions of Change event, these trailblazers shared their reasons for working in global health. As Solange Mbaye, regional program manager of the Amref West Africa Hub, shared, “I want to contribute something bigger than myself … In 10 years, 20 years, if I'm still here, I want to be able to say, I did this. This is happening because I brought something small … I did this and I helped in saving lives and livelihoods of people around me.”
Africa plans to drive health security with its youth population
Over 60% of the African population is under 25 years old. In a bid to utilize the power of this demographic, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has launched health initiatives targeting the youth.
At Pfizer, we too focus on our “why.” Our purpose — breakthroughs that change patients’ lives — truly is our north star and as our chairman and CEO Albert Bourla shared, “When the purpose is also a noble purpose [it] not only orients you to what you need to do, but gives you the inspiration to do more, to [go] the extra mile.”
Our work at Pfizer and The Pfizer Foundation to ensure better health is possible for everyone, everywhere, is deeply motivating to our team and drives our partner engagement. As global health leaders working with younger generations, we can harness the why and transform that passion into purpose — and into impact.
Be strategically disruptive
Based on the hopes, ambitions, and actions of the trailblazers we engaged during UNGA 78, they are not interested in just accepting the status quo. They want to “permanently break the cycle of poverty,” as shared by Tsion Gebremedhin, a program support officer at Amref Health Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but also do so “without it breaking us.”
It was clear from our Champions for Change event, and in many other conversations at UNGA 78, that to achieve permanent change and accelerate progress, we need to transform our approaches and realign power structures.
Gebremedhin shared that she appreciates working with Amref because of the way it is strategically disruptive and supports community-centric change in Africa.
Amref’s commitment to people-centered solutions is indeed one of the reasons The Pfizer Foundation values our ongoing partnership to improve vaccine access. In this program, strategic disruption means listening to communities and responding to their needs — not the other way around. It means offering vaccines, but also providing nutrition, maternal and neonatal care, and other urgent services that people from the area have identified as a priority.
Opinion: Africa will flourish if we invest in its young people
To support talented African youths, "we must work to decolonize ourselves, our education systems, and institutions across national and international levels."
In the development sector, we need not only a solution but a systemic change that centers on communities. We need to look to partners on the ground who give communities a voice and autonomy.
Empower talent closest to the problem
Given the young age of people at the heart of many communities we’re trying to reach, it is a crucial time to galvanize this next generation to be their own problem solvers.
As Mbaye explained, “When this [youth empowerment] movement started, there was a lot of bringing young people in and talking to them instead of having them really be a part of that strategic decision-making.”
At The Pfizer Foundation, we have found that some of our most successful programs are the ones that invest in those who are closest to the problem — the communities themselves. Through our Global Health Innovations Grants, or GHIG, program, for example, we support pioneering initiatives, like North Star Alliance’s growing network of roadside health clinics serving hard-to-reach populations.
Since 2016, through the GHIG program and by leveraging small grants and a network of support, these nonprofit organizations and social enterprises have reached more than six million patients with quality health care, opened more than 1,800 new points of care, and trained 80,000 health care workers. As Eva Mwai, director of North Star Alliance, recently reflected, “If we empower communities, they can take care of themselves.”
Co-creating sustainable approaches can help this generation and those that follow toward a more equitable future. It’s time to let them lead the charge as emerging champions for health equity. By investing in our future leaders now, we can help address community needs — and work toward creating a healthier world for all.
The Pfizer Foundation is a charitable organization established by Pfizer Inc. It is a separate legal entity from Pfizer Inc. with distinct legal restrictions.
About the author
Caroline Roan
Caroline Roan is the chief sustainability officer and senior vice president of global health and social impact at Pfizer Inc. and president of The Pfizer Foundation. At Pfizer, she has been responsible for guiding philanthropic investments, deploying disaster relief funding, overseeing colleague community engagement, and ensuring equitable access to Pfizer’s medicines and vaccines. She has helped shape Pfizer’s global health strategy, long-term public-private partnerships, and investments to improve public health systems.
