Dr. Joyce Sakala Vice President for Near East and Africa
33rd MWIA Triennial Congress
The Medical Women’s International Association (MWIA) Near East and Africa region was well represented at the 33rd Triennial Congress with Nigeria having the largest delegation followed by Tanzania, Zambia and Ghana. We also had a good number of delegates from Cameroon, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Egypt, among others.
We had a successful regional meeting during congress and have continued to engage with member countries after transition of leadership from past Regional Vice President, Dr Claribel Abam.
IGLOWE- Improving Women’s Health through Online Learning
A project to Improve Women’s Health through Online Learning was launched during the 33rd Congress. Two out of the 3 countries participating are from Africa i.e., Nigeria and Zambia. India is also one of the sites. This project is being conducted in collaboration with the Gates Foundation and is a great opportunity to build an online platform where education materials on various health conditions affecting women, other than sexual and reproductive health is being hosted in conjunction with MWIA.
The resources are free and can be accessed under Resources by all members on https://mwia.net/downloads/
Use the country specific credentials to login;
Username: Zambia
Password: Zambezi!25
Username: Nigeria
Password: Eagle#2025
Username: UnitedStates
Password: Stars&2025
Username: India
Password: Namaste@2025
Member Association Survey
A survey was conducted by the Regional Vice President to understand the membership needs of individual countries. Follow up is being done to get views from association representatives on their aspirations for the region and global MWIA body.
International Public Health Day’s Observation
Member countries have participated actively in various international campaigns. The Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria (MWAN) launched a nationwide health sector initiative in collaboration with the Ambassade de France au Nigeria to assess GBV knowledge and management practices among doctors, nurses, midwives and allied health professionals in selected facilities across six geopolitical zones. The findings from this survey will inform policy strengthening, targeted training, and improvement of referral pathways and survivor centered care within the health sector. MWAN also held radio talks during world sexual health day, among other activities.
As part of the 2025 Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October), the Medical Women’s Association of Gambia (MWAGam) brought a fitting discussion sub-topic to clinicians in The Gambia. Despite its relatively small population, Gambia has a disproportionate elevated incidence of breast cancer, often presenting very late. Hence over the past few years, MWAGam has taken the awareness campaign to different groups of communities, including the army, police, prison staff and prisoners as well as the general population. In 2025, MWAGam decided to take the campaign to colleagues who are themselves caregivers and community members to learn more and “spread the word”. This 2025 Breast Cancer Awareness edition was online. It featured a diasporan MWAGam general surgeon and an MWAGam member living in Canada together with a Nigerian breast cancer expert (general surgeon and surgical oncologist). Prof. Mercy Isichei gave a brilliant talk on the topic from Nigeria.
Annual Association Meetings
The Women in Medicine Lesotho, the Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria (MWAN) and Zambia (MWAZ) had their annual general meetings in the previous quarter which featured important scientific sessions and awards ceremonies
Partnerships
The Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria is forging various important partnerships with allies to contribute to cervical cancer prevention, the introduction of Measles and Rubella Vaccination, and capacity building for sickle cell warriors and caregivers.
Continuous engagement
We have continued to have an open communication platform via the Whatsapp platform and email to continuously share updates among ourselves and MWIA Exco members. Efforts are being made to update the mailing list.
Mentorship
The Medical Women’s Association of Zambia (MWAZ) has continued with its mentorship program with graduation of the 4th Cohort in November, 2025
Conclusion
The regional member associations have continued to show great efforts in driving the women’s health agenda forwards. A meeting is planned for the first quarter of 2026 to discuss alignment of activities with the Triennial priorities.