Speak Up Africa in Action is Speak Up Africa’s signature activation model designed as a traveling [in-person] convening platform that plugs policy dialogue, public engagement, and immersive storytelling into Africa’s most powerful cultural engine: sport. We turn sport events into a recurring, trusted space where government, civil society, business, media, and culture align on public health issues, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs).

Embedded within major tournaments and global events, it is a recurring platform that deepens relationships, builds political momentum, and amplifies African-led health narratives. In each host city, we curate a compact mix of: Leaders’ Plenary, Press Corner, Lights, Camera, Action digital storytelling, and immersive experiences – with rotating themes like Immunization, Malaria, Women’s Health, NTDs, and Education (cross-cut by gender, youth, digital, and domestic financing).

The theory of change is simple: shared passion → shared purpose → sustained collaboration. By returning with the sports calendar, relationships compound, fragmentation shrinks, Africa-led stories travel farther, and cross-sector coalitions move faster from inspiration to implementation. Each edition strengthens the next – creating a continuous, continent-wide ecosystem where sport accelerates and sustains health impact.

Africa’s public health gains are at a critical inflection point. Hard-won progress on immunization, polio eradication, and malaria elimination is increasingly threatened by funding volatility, competing global crises, and declining public trust. At the same time, Africa’s youth population is growing, connected, and culturally mobilized through sport as never before.