Africa’s Obesity Advocates Push for a Bigger Role in Health Systems

By Alain Kabinda 

From Ghana to Zambia and South Africa, advocates are bringing evidence and lived experience into health policy discussions, calling for obesity to be recognised as an essential part of the region’s response to NCDs and Universal Health Coverage.

As African countries work to build stronger health systems and expand access to healthcare, advocates are calling for a health challenge that affects millions across the continent to receive greater attention: obesity.

From national engagement in Ghana to high-level discussions at the 76th Session of the World Health Organization Regional Committee for Africa (AFRO76), World Obesity members and advocates are helping to ensure that obesity is not overlooked in wider conversations about noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), primary healthcare and Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

Their work is also highlighting another critical element of health policy: the voices of people living with obesity themselves.

The experience by Ms. Brenda Chitindi, Executive Director of the Zambia Heart and Stroke Foundation and a World Obesity lived experience advocate, demonstrate how national and regional advocacy can connect evidence, lived experience and policy.

At AFRO76, Ms. Brenda Chitindi represented World Obesity alongside other organisations, bringing the perspectives of people living with obesity and the wider obesity community into regional health discussions.

In a statement on progress towards implementing the WHO African Region's Framework for Sustaining Resilient Health Systems to Achieve Universal Health Coverage and Promote Health Security 2023–2030, Ms. Brenda welcomed progress while urging Member States to make obesity prevention and management part of efforts to strengthen UHC and primary healthcare.

Her intervention drew attention to the rapidly increasing prevalence of obesity across the African region and its links with other major NCDs, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Integrating obesity prevention and management into primary healthcare could deliver what advocates describe as a “double dividend” — improving health outcomes while also generating economic benefits and addressing a major driver of multiple diseases.

It emphasised the importance of listening to people who live with obesity and involving them in the design and implementation of health services.

When people living with obesity are involved in shaping care, services can become more person-centred and better equipped to address stigma and the barriers that prevent people from seeking or receiving appropriate support.

Ms. Brenda's participation at AFRO76 therefore represented more than advocacy on behalf of people living with obesity. It reflected a wider effort to ensure that people with lived experience have a seat at the table when decisions about their health are being made.

Alongside her advocacy at AFRO76, Ms. Brenda also helped raise awareness of MAPPS II – Management and Advocacy for Providers, Patients and Systems, World Obesity's global initiative examining how obesity prevention, treatment and care are addressed across health systems.

MAPPS II brings together research and multi-stakeholder engagement, involving healthcare professionals, policymakers, civil society, people living with obesity and their caregivers.

The initiative is designed to build a clearer understanding of what happens in practice: where health systems are responding effectively to obesity, where gaps exist and what can be done to strengthen prevention and care.

South Africa is one of six MAPPS II deep-dive countries, where researchers and stakeholders are examining barriers and opportunities in obesity prevention and care.

A national roundtable in Cape Town brought together more than 25 participants from government, healthcare, research, civil society and lived experience.

The gathering provided an opportunity to bring different perspectives together and explore how obesity can be better addressed within existing health systems.

MAPPS II is also building a broader regional evidence base. The forthcoming MAPPS II Atlas includes South Africa, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya among the countries represented from the WHO African Region.

As governments across Africa seek to strengthen primary healthcare and advance UHC, decisions about which conditions receive attention, resources and services have significant implications for health equity.

Obesity is closely connected to several other major health challenges, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Yet access to prevention, treatment and long-term care can vary considerably.

For advocates, this creates a strong case for obesity to be addressed as part of integrated health-system planning rather than through isolated programmes.

The evidence emerging from MAPPS II, combined with engagement from healthcare professionals, policymakers, civil society and people with lived experience, can help build that case.

Evidence and stakeholder engagement from MAPPS II will contribute to national and global discussions on health-system priorities in the lead-up to the 2027 United Nations High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage.

For the obesity community, the meeting provides an important opportunity to reinforce a fundamental argument: universal health coverage cannot be achieved if major drivers of disease and health inequity are overlooked.

That means ensuring that obesity prevention, treatment and care are considered within broader health-system strategies.

The focus is increasingly moving beyond individual responsibility towards questions of prevention, access to care, health-system capacity, policy and equity.

Advocates like Ms. Brenda Chitindi are helping to drive that change by connecting national experiences with regional and global policy discussions.

Her work, alongside the evidence being generated through MAPPS II, is helping to build a stronger argument for obesity to be treated as an integral part of the NCD and UHC agenda.

As countries prepare for the next major global discussion on universal health coverage, the challenge will be turning that growing recognition into concrete action.

For people living with obesity across Africa, that action could mean health services that are easier to access, more responsive to their needs and free from stigma.

And for health systems, it could mean recognising that achieving better health for all requires addressing obesity alongside the other major challenges shaping the region’s health future.