Over the past eight months, hundreds of advocates, civil society leaders, healthcare professionals, researchers, policymakers, cancer survivors, and community champions from across Africa have come together with one shared purpose: strengthening the continent’s collective voice in the fight against cervical cancer.
From August 2025 to April 2026, the African Cervical Health Alliance (ACHA) successfully delivered the inaugural Advocacy ECHO Programme, a Pan-African virtual capacity-strengthening initiative implemented with technical support from the ECHO Institute and financial support from Expertise France through the SUCCESS Programme.
The programme created a dynamic learning and collaboration platform where participants from over 20 countries across Anglophone and Francophone Africa exchanged knowledge, shared lived experiences, and developed practical advocacy skills to advance cervical cancer elimination within their own communities and national health systems.
Responding to a Critical Need
Despite being one of the most preventable forms of cancer, cervical cancer continues to claim the lives of thousands of women across Africa every year. While grassroots civil society organizations and survivor-led groups remain at the forefront of awareness, prevention, and patient support, many continue to face significant barriers including limited policy engagement skills, fragmented advocacy efforts, inadequate access to technical resources, and constrained funding opportunities.
The ACHA Advocacy ECHO Programme was developed to address these challenges by equipping advocates with practical knowledge, strengthening collaboration across borders, and building a more coordinated and evidence-driven advocacy movement capable of influencing lasting change.
Eight Sessions, One Shared Vision
Across eight interactive monthly sessions, participants explored the full spectrum of effective cervical health advocacy, from understanding the fundamentals of advocacy and policy engagement to strengthening media engagement, coalition building, community-led accountability, and sustainable resource mobilization.
Key learning areas included:
- Advocacy Basics
- HPV and Cervical Cancer Basics
- WHO 90-70-90 Elimination Targets
- Stakeholder and Community engagement
- Coalition Building through Champions
- Strategic Media Engagement for Communication
- Community-led Monitoring and Applied Research for Policy Influence
- Resource Mobilization and Partnerships for Sustained Advocacy
Each session combined expert technical presentations with practical country experiences and peer learning, ensuring participants gained not only theoretical understanding but also actionable strategies informed by real-world implementation across Africa.
Practical Advocacy Tools
One of the programme’s defining strengths was its emphasis on practical tools that participants could immediately apply within their own contexts.
Participants were introduced to the ACHA ASPIRE Cervical Health Scorecard, a community-led accountability tool designed to generate evidence, identify service delivery gaps, strengthen accountability mechanisms, and support policy influence through data-driven advocacy.
The programme also showcased ACHA’s Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials, equipping advocates with adaptable resources to strengthen community awareness, support demand generation, and promote informed decision-making around cervical cancer prevention and care.
Building Connections Beyond Borders
Through bilingual sessions delivered in both English and French, participants connected across countries, disciplines, and sectors, sharing innovations, discussing common challenges, and building relationships that will continue long after the conclusion of the first series.
Civil society organizations engaged alongside government representatives, clinicians, researchers, development partners, and survivors, creating an environment where collaboration became as important as capacity building itself.
Laying the Foundation for Lasting Impact
The impact of the first Advocacy ECHO Series extends beyond the completion of eight virtual sessions.
The programme has reinforced the critical role of community-led advocacy in advancing accountability, influencing policy, strengthening health systems, and ensuring that women and girls have equitable access to prevention, screening, treatment, and care services.
In the coming months, ACHA will host a series of special engagement sessions designed to sustain learning, deepen collaboration, and strengthen member capacity ahead of the next ACHA Advocacy ECHO cycle.
As Africa advances toward the global goal of cervical cancer elimination, one lesson from this first series stands above all others: meaningful progress requires more than scientific innovation and policy commitments. It requires informed advocates, empowered communities, strong partnerships, and a united movement working together across borders.
