Implementation science capacity building for immunization stakeholders in Africa: benefits and way forward

The success of immunization programmes in maximizing the public health and economic benefits of vaccines hinges on the ability of stakeholders within countries at both national and subnational levels to implement effectively with equity as the Northern Star. The field of implementation science which emerged in response to know-do gaps, has several frameworks, models, and theories that can be used by immunization stakeholders to enhance vaccination efforts across diverse contexts. However, there is a need to up-skill immunization stakeholders in Africa with implementation science capacity. Existing immunization-related training on the continent are a low-hanging opportunity that can be leveraged to enhance core competencies like implementation theories and frameworks, implementation strategies, systems thinking, quality improvement, and process evaluation among stakeholders. We posit that strengthening the capacity and capability of immunization stakeholders in implementation science can lead to an improvement in its continuous usage within programme settings to solve contextual bottlenecks. Two pathways for achieving this are suggested in this article.