A new analysis commissioned by IntraHealth International is helping organizations better prepare for the inevitable surprises of the future—and to explore how those surprises might shape Africa’s future health workforce needs. We published a report just before COVID-19 became a global pandemic and began to shape the future in real time.

Read: The Future of Health Work in Africa: What Will It Look Like in 2040?

“We wanted to explore what health care—and the health workers that provide it—could look like in the coming decades,” says Polly Dunford, IntraHealth’s president and CEO, “and to provide an example of how thinking strategically about various future scenarios can help governments, organizations, and individuals make choices that set them up for resilience and success.”

The Future of Health Work in Africa: What Will It Look Like in 2040? presents three possible scenarios for what health work in Africa might look like in 20 years. These sections—titled Cyberpunk Africa, Muddling Through, and Further Together—outline what each scenario might mean for health workers, governments, and NGOs. Each hypothetical future maps out the strategies, structures, and capabilities that members of our field may need to offer.

“We’ve already begun conducting workshops to help our team think critically and creatively about how we can prepare for these and many other future scenarios,” says Dai Hozumi, chief technical officer at IntraHealth. “If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that our future is unpredictable and we need to build a resilience strategy. The future of health work in Africa will be shaped by this pandemic but also by immigration, technology, climate change, conflict, and more—this new tool helps us think through many of these factors so we can prepare for the challenges ahead.”

Interested in using IntraHealth’s research for discussions with your own organization or among partners? Get in touch.

IntraHealth’s work on this publication was commissioned by Dai Hozumi, IntraHealth’s chief technical officer, led by Matt Ranen, scenario planning and strategy consultant, writer Adam Flynn, edited by IntraHealth principal writer/editor Margarite Nathe, coordinated by communications officer Casey Bishopp, and designed by IntraHealth’s Karen Melton.