Ministerial side event on the use of Artificial Intelligence for Health

Background

In June 2021, the WHO Regional Office for Africa (WHO AFRO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and partners from the Health Harmonization for African (HHA), convened an Artificial Intelligence (AI) technical workshop aimed at assessing the penetration of AI for Health and generating recommendations for the use of AI in health in the African region. The event was under the theme “Health Status Transformation and the Role of AI for health and pandemic preparedness in the African Context ”. This workshop was against the backdrop of the WHO global strategy on digital health  and the WHO AFRO Framework for Implementing the Global Strategy on Digital Health in The WHO African Region . The event brought together participants from Ministries of Health, Ministries of ICT, Academia, the private sector, and Non-Governmental Organizations. In the same year, WHO AFRO launched a digital health survey, which included an AI section. The survey was based on the 2015 WHO Global Observatory on eHealth. The WHO AFRO regional office also generated additional reference materials relevant to AI for health in the context of the African region.

In 2021, WHO headquarters released an AI guidance document entitled “Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence for Health ”. The guidance document was developed to assist WHO Member States in implementing AI for health. WHO has also developed several training programmes aimed at raising AI and its application in health, including a recent course based on the WHO guidance on Ethics and Governance of AI.

It is recognized that the developed world is benefiting from more advanced analysis and use of data. Technologies like AI have the potential to offer new insights and tools to improve clinical decision-making and predictive analytics for health emergency preparedness, mitigate workforce shortages, tailor programs targeting areas of greatest need, improve forecasting of disease outbreaks, and bring efficiencies to health service delivery. Realizing the potential of digital health and AI to achieve development goals will require collaboratively addressing multiple challenges, including strengthening underlying digital infrastructure and digital health systems, working to improve data quality, responsible management and sharing of available data, and eventually trust and utilization of data to inform strategic planning.

Furthermore, the ITU and WHO, through various collaborative activities that include the Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for health , aimed to establish standardized assessment frameworks that can support the evaluation of AI-based methods for health and, through joint capacity-building programmes , have delivered training to enhance and strengthen digital skills for health.

Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an unprecedented demand for digital technology-based solutions in screening populations, tracking infections, and minimizing direct human contact. Using different technologies at every step has brought efficiencies in tracking and tracing contacts, testing, and case management, to mention but a few. Most importantly, technology has played and continues to play a vital role in protecting medical personnel by limiting direct contact with patients, disinfecting controlled environments, and disseminating public health and emergency messages through telehealth. By leveraging the use of digital technology in Africa’s health sector, different health crises can be managed better, and health care systems can be strengthened through effective and more efficient digital mechanisms.

The African Context 

Africa is, in many ways, poised to make increased use of Digital and AI technologies due to the rapid increase of mobile phone coverage and use . However, significant gaps in the digital health ecosystems of many African countries remain that need to be addressed in order to orchestrate wider utilization and adoption of these technologies . Realizing the full potential of digital technology, including AI, requires strengthening the policy and the regulatory environment, system infrastructure, sustainable financing, security and workforce capacity, and diversity in the stakeholders involved in digital health and technology innovation. While it is critical that Africa is not left out of new advances, it is equally important to approach frontier technologies thoughtfully.

The Ministerial side event on the use of Artificial intelligence in the health sector in the African countries
Following the afore mentioned technical meeting on AI , together with various knowledge generation activities on AI conducted by the WHO AFRO and the USAID, the Regional Office (WHO AFRO) and the ITU, with support from the USAID, will be convening a ministerial side event on the use of AI for health, in the context of the African region. The ministerial side event will bring together high-level government policy-makers across Africa to discuss critical policy dimensions of strengthening the health system through AI and other relevant digital solutions. The meeting will lay the foundation for responsibly developing and adopting frontier technologies such as AI in health systems in Africa. The ministerial side event will take place along the sidelines of the 72nd WHO Regional Committee for Africa . 

Ministerial side event objectives

The objectives of the ministerial side event are to: 

1. Showcase AI-driven health solutions developed and implemented by the Member States in the African Region.
2. Identify concrete actions for shaping policy and enabling environments to foster digital technologies for accelerated improvements in health and related development programs.

Ministerial side event expected outputs

 The expected outputs of the Ministerial event include:

1. Commitments from Ministers of Health, Ministers of ICT, and all stakeholders to foster an enabling environment for the use of digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the health sector at the national level.
2. Enhanced adoption on the use of AI and other digital technologies to transform the health sector in the African Region.

Read the full concept note

Draft Agenda