Engage Africa Foundation

EAF aims to address the issue of chronic disease in Africa. 80% of the global burden of chronic diseases is found in low and middle income countries. In a few years the greater burden of diseases in sub Saharan Africa (about 65%) will be accounted for by non-communicable diseases. Commensurate action on this issue remains unbelievably poor. Our three key aims are policy advocacy, research and health promotion.

Policy advocacy: to ensure political will by encouraging political leaders to formulate an overdue comprehensive policy on chronic disease.

Awareness and health promotion on the risk factors and prevention through media campaigns, training of peer educators in academic institutions, working with employers of labour to put workplace health measures that reduce the risk factors among others. We are aiming for a social movement rather than a top down approach by working with all sectors of society- from community leaders to youth to students and especially the media in raising awareness about this epidemic, risk factors and preventive measures and most especially policy advocacy to ensure successes are sustainable .

Research: to find out the epidemiological risk profile in order to establish an evidence base for policy advocacy and so that our strategy is context specific. This will be through implementation of the STEPS monitoring and surveillance instrument of the World Health Organisation. We have already conducted a pilot interview to assess the masses’ demand for this program through conducting interviews in collaboration with media personnel in Nigeria. Our first and foremost priority however is the research component as this will help us know exactly what risk factors are prevalent in that setting and will be used to refine our established action plan.