Sustainable community health innovations, stronger government partnerships and locally led solutions took centre stage during a Nairobi workshop exploring how to scale non-communicable disease (NCD) interventions in humanitarian settings. Stowelink Foundation participated in the discussions through its Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Ogweno Stephen, contributing to conversations on strengthening community-driven approaches and ensuring that people living with chronic conditions are not left behind during humanitarian emergencies.
Held on 21 October 2026 at Ulwazi Place by Trianum in Nairobi, the workshop, titled Catalysing Scale for NCD Innovations in Humanitarian Crises, was convened by Elrha. It brought together researchers, community innovators, humanitarian organisations and public health advocates to examine how promising NCD interventions can move beyond pilot projects towards sustainable implementation and wider impact.
The workshop addressed an important gap in humanitarian health responses. While emergency interventions often prioritise immediate health needs, people living with diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other chronic conditions require continuous care, regular access to medicines and long-term health support. Displacement, disrupted health services, limited resources and fragile healthcare infrastructure can make accessing this care particularly difficult.
For communities affected by humanitarian crises, strengthening NCD responses requires solutions that recognise these realities and can operate within challenging and rapidly changing environments.
Scaling Community-Led NCD Innovations Across Africa
A central focus of the workshop was the experience and lessons emerging from Elrha’s Community-Led Innovation Partnerships (CLIP) programme, delivered in partnership with Start Network, ADRN and other partners.
The programme provided an opportunity to examine how community-led innovations can respond to health challenges in humanitarian settings and what is needed to strengthen their sustainability, generate evidence and expand their reach.
Four community innovators presented their interventions, ambitions and emerging plans for scale:
- Dr Salwa Musa, Sudan Childhood Diabetes Association, Sudan.
- Takwe Boniface, Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services, Cameroon.
- Dr Albert Kahlezo, Kivu Diabetes Center, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- Dr Lela Alemeyahu, HelpAge International, Ethiopia.
Their presentations demonstrated the different approaches being developed by community organisations to address NCD-related challenges across humanitarian contexts.
Participants also engaged in an interactive World Café session to review the proposed pathways to scale and evidence-generation plans. The discussions enabled participants to identify strengths, highlight implementation gaps and provide practical feedback to help the innovators strengthen their approaches.
The exchange reinforced the importance of understanding the local context in which an innovation operates. Solutions that work in one community may require adaptation before they can be introduced elsewhere. Scaling therefore involves more than increasing the number of people reached. It requires evidence, community ownership, appropriate partnerships and the capacity to sustain interventions over time.
Why Government Partnerships Matter for Sustainable NCD Programmes
An important theme throughout the workshop was the role of government partnerships in moving community innovations towards sustainable implementation.
Developing a promising health intervention is only the beginning. For an innovation to remain operational, reach intended populations and deliver lasting benefits, it must have a realistic pathway towards sustainability.
Engagement with national and local governments can help connect community-led initiatives to existing health systems, public health priorities, service delivery structures and domestic financing mechanisms. It can also create opportunities for successful interventions to become part of longer-term health programmes rather than remaining dependent on short-term project funding.
For community innovators working in humanitarian settings, this means considering government engagement and sustainability from the early stages of programme development.
These considerations were explored further during the panel discussion, From Local Innovation to Sustainable Scale, which examined how humanitarian organisations, researchers, financing actors and advocates can support the transition from locally developed interventions to sustainable programmes.
The panel brought together Dr Sylvia Khemati, Senior Regional Health Advisor for NCDs at the Red Cross; Dr Mary Amuyunzu-Nyamongo, Founder and Director of the African Institute for Health and Development and Co-chair of the NCDI Poverty Network; Edgar Wabwire of the Kuja Platform, powered by Adeso; and Dr Salwa Musa of the Sudan Childhood Diabetes Association.
The discussion highlighted the need for collaboration across different sectors to ensure that promising community innovations receive the institutional, technical and financial support required to grow.
Connecting Community Innovation, Research and Health Systems
Stowelink Foundation’s participation in the Nairobi workshop reflects its wider commitment to NCD prevention, health systems strengthening, community-led public health interventions and policy advocacy across Africa.
Through its work, the Foundation seeks to strengthen the connection between communities, health systems and decision-makers. Its engagement in conversations on scaling NCD innovations is particularly relevant as African countries continue to navigate the intersection of humanitarian emergencies, health inequalities and the growing burden of chronic diseases.
The discussions at the Elrha workshop reinforced an important lesson: innovation alone is not enough. Community-driven solutions need credible evidence, strong partnerships, appropriate financing and clear pathways for integration into health systems.
This is particularly important in humanitarian settings, where health services are often disrupted and communities face additional barriers to accessing continuous care.
For NCD innovations to achieve meaningful scale, community leadership must be matched with institutional commitment and sustainable approaches to implementation.
Ensuring People Living with NCDs Are Not Left Behind in Humanitarian Crises
As humanitarian needs continue to evolve across Africa, people living with chronic conditions must remain part of the conversation on emergency preparedness, response and recovery.
Diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other NCDs do not disappear during humanitarian emergencies. In many cases, the disruption of healthcare services makes managing these conditions even more difficult.
Strengthening NCD responses in these settings will require sustained collaboration between governments, humanitarian organisations, researchers, community-based organisations, innovators and public health advocates.
The Nairobi workshop provided an important platform for examining how locally developed solutions can contribute to this response and what is needed to support their long-term sustainability.
For Stowelink Foundation, participation in these discussions is part of its continued commitment to advancing evidence-based, community-centred approaches to public health and strengthening health systems that respond to the needs of the people they serve.
Ultimately, scaling NCD innovations in humanitarian settings is about more than expanding programmes. It is about ensuring that people living with chronic conditions can access the continuous, appropriate and dignified care they need, regardless of the circumstances in which they live.