"When I first compiled the list of every African country’s national eHealth strategy or digital health policy back in 2020, the dominant instrument across the continent was a five-year national eHealth strategy. They were written to a WHO Global Observatory template, often expired, frequently undiscoverable, and almost never legally binding. Six years on, that picture has changed enough that the original list is misleading more than it is helpful. The headline shift since 2019 is the kind of strategy in each country. The WHO-templated eHealth document of the 2010s is being replaced by something bigger, more integrated with national digital transformation agendas, and increasingly statutory rather than purely strategic.
Kenya’s Digital Health Act of 2023 is the clearest example: a binding statute that establishes a Digital Health Agency and a Comprehensive Integrated Digital Health Information System, functionally superseding a 2016 policy that on paper still has another five years to run. Egypt launched its National Digital Health Strategy 2025-2029 in November 2025, anchored on the Universal Health Insurance digital architecture rather than an isolated MoH workstream. Mozambique’s first dedicated Estratégia de Saúde Digital de Moçambique 2025-2034 runs ten years, signalling that ministries are now sequencing investment beyond the donor project horizon. Below is the updated table of operative national digital health instruments for all 54 African Union member states, current as of July 2026." (Introduction)