– As GPHU launches Faculty for the Future
Africa cannot afford to keep undermining healthcare if it hopes to survive and thrive in the future. This was the message from Professor Claire Nelson, a renowned futurist and visiting professor at the Global Public Health University (GPHU), as she called on African leaders to urgently begin reimagining health systems that are resilient, people-centered, and future-ready.
Speaking at the official launch of the GPHU Faculty for the Future, held at Radisson Hotel, Ikeja GRA, Lagos, Nelson urged African nations to stop borrowing foreign models wholesale and instead create healthcare solutions rooted in local culture, values and community realities.
The Faculty for the Future, an initiative of the LiveWell Initiative (LWI), is designed to align education, innovation and policy thinking with the African Union’s Agenda 2063, providing a platform to drive health reforms that meet the needs of Africa’s fast-growing, youthful population.
Nelson warned that Africa faces a stark choice of either taking ownership of shaping its health destiny through strategic foresight, or risk remaining at the mercy of global systems that do not serve its people. With over 70 per cent of the continent’s population under the age of 30, she said the time for passive waiting is over. “We have to stop thinking that the future is something happening to us. It is something we must co-create,” she declared.
In a wide-ranging keynote, Nelson, who has been recognised among Forbes’ top 50 female futurists and honoured by the White House under the Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD), underscored the need for Africa to proactively harness emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, personalised medicine and blockchain.
However, she cautioned that these advances come with ethical, legal and social risks that Africa must prepare for through robust governance and legal safeguards, lest the continent once again finds itself exploited or left behind.
The GPHU professor challenged policymakers and institutions to embrace a new mindset where healthcare is viewed not merely as a clinical issue but as a living system connected to how people eat, work, live and find emotional and spiritual well-being. She also proposed the adoption of cooperative financing models rooted in trusted local institutions such as faith communities, urging mega-churches and microfinance institutions to partner in delivering sustainable healthcare solutions through community health cooperatives.
Drawing on her years of research into the futures of healthcare systems, Nelson warned against building health strategies that are blind to sustainability, relevance and the realities of local populations. She called on African universities to embrace indigenous medicine as a legitimate knowledge base worthy of integration with modern science, stressing that Africa’s future health systems must be designed with cultural intelligence and rooted in community trust.
Earlier, Dr Bisi Bright, Chief Executive Officer of LiveWell Initiative and Convener of GPHU, described the inauguration as a watershed moment in the university’s evolution. She traced GPHU’s roots to the Global Health Mini-University, once hosted by George Washington University and USAID, explaining that the university had grown from an academic experiment into a full-fledged institution driving future-focused education and public health leadership in Africa.
Bright announced plans to develop a metaverse learning platform that would expand access to GPHU’s offerings for remote learners across Africa and globally. She revealed that Mrs Bukola Ogunsakin, a director at GPHU and a cyber-lawyer, would work alongside Professor Nelson to actualise the virtual campus and support accreditation for the new Faculty for the Future.
She noted that GPHU had already produced postgraduate diploma holders and trained international students, further extending its impact through initiatives such as the Extraordinary Women Advancing Healthcare Awards.
The highpoint of the occasion was the symbolic dedication of the Faculty for the Future, performed jointly by Hon. John Omotola Soares, Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, Dr Bright, Professor Nelson and other senior figures at the university.
Pastor Ighodalo, in his goodwill message, challenged Africans to break free from short-term thinking, citing nations like Canada that plan infrastructure 100 years ahead, and urged a cultural shift toward long-term planning.
The event drew notable figures from across the health sector, including Dr Pamela Ajayi, president of the Healthcare Federation of Nigeria (HFN), and Professor Akin Osibogun, consultant public health physician and former chief medical director at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, among others.
