Why the youth?

With over 400 million youths, Africa has the youngest population globally [5]. This, alongside increasing mobile phone penetration and internet usage, makes the continent fertile ground for digital innovations to thrive, including digital health [6,7]. Asides their demographic power, fresh perspectives, creativity, and resilience, many other factors uniquely position African youths as not just contributors (often brought in as an after-thought), but pivotal leaders and drivers of community-centered digital health change management efforts. These include:

• Tech-Savviness and Influence: Youths are likely to adopt new technologies faster than their older counterparts and influence others [8]. This makes them key change agents who can be leveraged to introduce and normalize digital health innovations within their communities. Where skepticism and distrust exist, they can help overcome user resistance by advocating, teaching and demonstrating the benefits of digital health tools to others. Studies show that these enhance digital health literacy, which increases chances of successful adoption and positive outcomes [7,9].
• Co-Design, Representation, and Feedback: With strong ‘insider’ understanding of local dynamics, Africa’s youths can serve as intermediaries between their communities and digital health creators and/or implementers. For instance, by easing community entry, stakeholder engagement process, and facilitating real-time feedback, they can ensure that digital health initiatives are culturally-sensitive, contextually-relevant, user-friendly, and effective in meeting the needs of their communities. These ultimately contribute to more effective implementation, such as seen in youth engagement in the co-design of CyberRwanda in Rwanda [10].
• Sustainability: Beyond the initial uptake, a community’s youths can be key drivers in embedding digital health solutions into their local health ecosystem and ensuring their long-term success. This works especially when they adopt a sense of ownership and foster the same among their peers and within their communities. The implementation of TuneMe, a digital intervention for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in Zambia, is an example of this [11].

Recommendations

Leveraging Africa’s youth for effective digital health implementation in communities must go beyond mere tokenism. Digital health implementers, donors, and policymakers must recognize youths in target communities as relevant stakeholders and “honor” their digital health citizenship [12]. To this end, the following recommendations are proposed:

1. 1. Holistic Youth Capacity-Building for Digital Health Implementation: While many African countries are investing in digital literacy among youths to meet the demands of an increasingly digital world, effective digital health implementation requires holistic capacity-building beyond general platform skills. This includes training in community mobilization, digital change management, health data ethics, and understanding of local health systems, to better prepare youths to serve as implementation liaisons and local sustainability champions. National health ministries and implementing partners should establish structured youth-focused initiatives that recruit and train youths and embed them within local digital health implementation teams. To navigate resource and logistical constraints, strategic partnerships with networks like Transform Health (https://transformhealthcoalition.org) and Digital Health Africa (https://digitalhealth-africa.org) can be forged. Existing models, such as Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Health Initiative for Rural Dwellers (HIRD), can also be adapted. For instance, the deployed medical corps members, who are already embedded and carrying out successful health promotion activities in local communities, can be further trained to support digital health implementation efforts [13].
2. 2. Institutionalize Youth Co-Design in Digital Health Initiatives: Governments and implementers must formally include young people in the design and local adaptation of digital health tools, especially for services targeting adolescents and young adults, and/or communities that they are representatives of. This means not just piloting with youths, but embedding them in initial research, design, and decision-making cycles, as recommended in the WHO Digital Health Youth Framework [11]. This ensures proper community participation and protection, especially in vulnerable African communities.
3. 3. Integrate Youth Representation in Digital Health Governance Structures: Beyond the direct digital tool or platform, it is important to include youths in relevant policy and implementation discussions, such as in national digital health steering committees, policy advisory groups, and regulatory bodies. This ensures that the needs and valuable insights of this majority demographic are not overlooked in strategic decisions as digital innovations in health continue to evolve.

Conclusion

This article has emphasized that digital technology alone will not solve Africa’s healthcare challenges. Rather, its impact depends on how well it is adopted, adapted, and sustained within communities. By positioning youths not as afterthoughts but as central actors in effective implementation and change management, we can harness their potential as catalysts for sustainable digital health solutions in communities. This requires deliberate investments in youth capacity-building, institutionalized co-design, and inclusive governance structures. Only then can we move closer to seeing digital technology effectively and sustainably solve Africa’s healthcare challenges.