Why WONCA Africa matters for Family Medicine in Zambia
Photo: University of Zambia delegation to WONCA Africa
By Bassim Birkland MD MPH
Senior Director Clinical Practice and Education, Seed Global Health
I have spent my entire professional career in Zambia, including many years working alongside colleagues at the University of Zambia to help grow Family Medicine as a new academic discipline and clinical specialty.
That made attending WONCA Africa 2026 in Gaborone particularly meaningful.
Family Medicine in Zambia is still young. Our postgraduate training programme has grown, graduates are increasingly taking on faculty and leadership roles, and the specialty is finding its place within the wider health system. But building a new discipline can sometimes feel like a relatively small group of people trying to solve very large problems. WONCA Africa reminds us that we are not doing this alone.
In Gaborone, Zambian family physicians were part of a much larger African community wrestling with many of the same questions we face at home: how do we train enough excellent family physicians? How do we develop and retain faculty? How do we build research capacity? And how do we demonstrate the contribution Family Medicine can make to stronger primary health care?
Photo: PRIMAFAMED group photo
The PRIMAFAMED meeting preceding the conference made those connections even more tangible. Zambia participated alongside Family Medicine departments from across the continent in conversations about academic capacity, advocacy, research, leadership and the future of the discipline.
Photo: FM Head of Department at UNZA Dr Mpundu Makasa and FM Programme Coordinator Dr Bell Nkonde, speaker
Seeing colleagues who were once our trainees in Zambia now participating as faculty, researchers and leaders was especially rewarding. For me, that is why gatherings like WONCA Africa matter.
Photo: Teachers of Family Medicine from Zambia with Dr Jan De Maeseneer at WONCA Africa
For a growing Family Medicine community like Zambia's, they help us see ourselves as part of something larger. We bring home ideas, relationships, mentors, collaborators and, perhaps most importantly, a renewed sense of what is possible.
In 2027, WONCA World comes to Cape Town. For colleagues across Zambia and the region, I hope we see it not just as a global conference happening in Africa but as an opportunity for African Family Medicine to help shape the global conversation about the future of primary health care.
The WONCA World Conference 2027 takes place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 3 to 7 November 2027. Hosted by the South African Academy of Family Physicians, it is the 26th WONCA World Conference and the first to be held in Africa in more than 25 years. The theme, "The roles of the family doctor in the primary health care team", brings together family doctors, primary care professionals, researchers and students from around the world to share practice, research and innovation in primary health care. Find out more at www.woncaworld2027.org.