Health promotion facilitates increased social and community participation in health. While health education is central to health promotion, legal, fiscal, economic, environmental and organizational interventions are essential. Health promotion contributes to programme impact through the prevention of disease, the reduction of risk factors associated with specific diseases, the fostering of lifestyles and conditions conducive to health, and increasing use of available health services.

The WHO Regional Committee for Africa adopted a strategy for health promotion - Health Promotion: A Strategy for the African Region and its corresponding Resolution AFR/RC51/R4 during its fifty-first session in 2001. The aim of the strategy is to foster actions that enhance the physical, social and emotional well-being of the people and contribute to the prevention of leading causes of disease, disability and death. The main thrust of the strategy is the emphasis on health promotion as a means of integrating various methods and approaches to improve the health of the people.

The strategy calls on Member States to address the following priorities in order to develop and implement effective health promotion programmes and activities:

• Advocacy on the use of health promotion to improve health and prevent disease
• Capacity-building for the strengthening of health promotion policies, mechanisms and interventions
• Country plans of action for strengthening the use and institutionalization of health promotion in health systems
• Incorporation of health promotion components into non-health sector interventions and programmes
• Strengthening of priority health programmes through the use of health promotion methods and approaches