Health promotion competency building in Africa: a call for action

The 26 leading authorities in competency-based and accreditation movements in global health promotion, health education, and public health identified eight domains of core competency that are required to engage in effective health promotion practice. The conference held in Galway, Ireland, issued a statement on building competency of health education and health promotion practitioners. Almost all the countries in the African region have structures for health education and/or health promotion that will benefit from the outcome of this conference, a first of its kind. Countries such as South Africa, Botswana and Nigeria have policies that support health education and health promotion development, and capacity building will be encouraged by the Consensus Statement to concentrate on identifying and building capacity within existing infrastructures across government and community sectors. South Africa attempted to establish a Standard Generating Board (SGB) for Health Promotion that envisaged the development of standards and qualifications for part of the second learner category, who hold the National Qualification Framework (NQF) level 5 certificate in health promotion. The author of this commentary joins other colleagues in congratulating the Galway conference participants for identifying the eight domains of core competency that are necessary if health promotion and health education are to develop into a distinct discipline, particularly in the African region.