How health can make a contribution to peace in Africa: WHO's Global Health for Peace Initiative (GHPI)

INTRODUCTION: Interlinkages between conflict, health and peace are well known. The 1986 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion,1 which enumerates the fundamental conditions and resources needed for health, lists peace as the first on the list of prerequisites for health. There cannot be health without peace. Violence in general, and armed conflicts in particular, have a direct impact on health. Conflicts cause violent deaths not only among combatants, but also among civilians, and lead to physical and mental injuries that will have lasting effects long after the conflict has ended. Conflicts also lead to the disruption of health systems, collapse of essential medical supply chains, and breakdown of social and economic systems, making it difficult to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC), one of the main objectives of WHO. It also leads to an exodus of healthcare workers, attacks on healthcare, upsurges in epidemics, increased infant mortality rates, sexual violence, and mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress. While there cannot be health without peace, there cannot be peace without health either: lack of access to basic social services, such as healthcare, for specific population groups, often on ethnic or religious grounds, leads to feelings of exclusion, sentiments of unfair treatment by the government and perceptions of unequal treatment vis-à-vis other groups. These inequities lead to grievances, which in turn, often boil over into protests and later violence. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022.