The meeting provided a platform for collaboration, sharing ideas and resetting focus for a post COVID-19 Africa. Three resolutions were adopted during the meeting including a strategy to decentralize health services for severe noncommunicable diseases, reforming the response to public health, and a regional strategy for the management of environmental determinants of human health.

Around 30 health ministers and more than 700 participants attended the meeting – held in the Togolese capital Lomé – in-person and virtually. The Regional Committee is the WHO’s decision-making body in the region, convening once a year to discuss and endorse regional policies, activities and financial plans to improve people’s health and well-being.

Closing speech by Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa: https://www.afro.who.int/regional-director/speeches-messages/closing-72nd-session-who-regional-committee-africa