Cameroon has just officially launched an ambitious shift towards e-health with a 29 billion FCFA plan to digitize its healthcare system by 2030. This program aims to make digital technology a central driver of access to care, performance, and health governance.
A 29 billion FCFA plan to transition to digital health
Launched on March 4, 2026, in Yaoundé, the National Strategic Plan for Digital Health (PSNSN) 2026-2030 has a total budget of 29.07 billion FCFA over five years. It aims to structure a digital health ecosystem capable of improving medical data management, care coordination, and emergency response.
Cameroonian authorities present this plan as a strategic investment for the country’s future healthcare. By 2030, the goal is to have a healthcare system based on interconnected, integrated, secure, and patient-centered digital tools, while guaranteeing the sovereignty of health data.
Eight priority areas for transforming the healthcare system
The 2026-2030 National Digital Health Strategy (PSNSN) is structured around eight priority areas that cover the entire digital health value chain. These include governance, adapting the legal framework, strengthening human resources, developing digital infrastructure, and ensuring the interoperability of information systems.
Specifically, the plan aims to reduce waiting times, strengthen traceability and transparency in hospitals, improve health surveillance, and support innovation in e-health. It also emphasizes the modernization of health information systems, the improvement of ICT infrastructure, and the promotion of a strong data-driven culture.
Better Emergency Management and Bringing Care Closer to Patients
One of the major challenges of this plan is the Cameroonian health system’s capacity to better manage health crises and emergencies. Authorities emphasize that digitalization should enable better patient monitoring, smoother information flow, and faster decision-making, both at the clinical and public health levels.
Ultimately, digital tools should help bring healthcare closer to the population, particularly in rural or remote areas, through telemedicine, electronic health records, and remote monitoring platforms. The ambition is also to support the implementation of Universal Health Coverage by making services more efficient, equitable, and targeted.
Multisectoral Governance and Mobilized Partners
The implementation of the National Health Security Plan (PSNSN) will rely on multisectoral governance involving the Ministry of Public Health, other government agencies responsible for digital technology, technical and financial partners, the private sector, civil society, and academic institutions. This approach aims to avoid fragmented projects and align all stakeholders around a single roadmap.
The plan is the result of a validation process conducted in late 2025 with national and international experts. It demonstrates a clear political commitment to making digital technology a cornerstone of modernizing public health services, in a context where donors and development partners are placing increasing importance on digital health.
From an “embryonic” system to an integrated ecosystem
The adoption of this new plan follows the evaluation of an initial digital health program covering the period 2020–2024. This evaluation, carried out in 2025, showed that the maturity level of the Cameroonian digital health system was still low, estimated at 1.8 out of 5, despite the establishment of a national architecture and the initial deployments of health information tools.
The authorities acknowledge that the institutional, legal, and financial frameworks still need strengthening to scale up. The PSNSN 2026-2030 thus presents itself as a structured response to these challenges, with quantified objectives, a dedicated budget and a clear vision: to move from a fragmented and embryonic system to an integrated, interoperable and sustainable digital ecosystem serving the health of the population.
