The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN) has presented its Community Pharmacists Assessment and Career Progression Institute (CPACPI) framework at the 84th FIP World Congress of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Montreal, Canada, advancing Nigeria’s efforts to transform community pharmacy practice.

The presentation, delivered on behalf of the association by its National Chairman, Pharm. Ambrose Igwekamma Ezeh, brought Nigeria’s community pharmacy reform into international discussions on professional development, primary healthcare and workforce advancement.

The four-day congress, held from August 30 to September 2, 2026, under the theme, “One Health, One Pharmacy – Bridging science, practice, and education,” brought together pharmacists, pharmaceutical scientists, educators, healthcare professionals and industry leaders from across the world.

ACPN pioneered the introduction of CPACPI in 2025 as a structured platform for assessing and advancing the careers of community pharmacists, seeking to address the absence of a clear, competency-based career progression pathway for practitioners in community practice.

Speaking during the presentation, Ezeh said the initiative was designed as more than an academic intervention, stressing its role in developing a sustainable professional workforce.

“Our mission through CPACPI is not merely to create an academic milestone, but to build a resilient, sustainable workforce capable of delivering world-class primary healthcare,” he said.

The study presented at the congress, titled “The Implementation Gap: Perceived Barriers and External Threats to Community Pharmacists’ Participation in a Career Advancement Scheme in Nigeria,” was based on research involving 182 practising community pharmacists across Nigeria.

The research was conducted through the collaborative efforts of Iyeseun Asieba, Abdulmuminu Isah, Faith Ehi, Ngozi Udem, Kowam Raji, Charles Oluwaseyi, and Chukwuemeka Ubaka, with institutional contributions from CPACPI Lagos, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu.

The findings identified workload pressures, limited practice time, and the high cost of training and certification as major barriers to participation in structured professional development.

It also identified weak regulatory enforcement as the most significant systemic threat to community pharmacy practice, while illegal medicine outlets and increasing competition from patent medicine vendors were cited as major concerns.

According to the study, more than three-fifths of respondents said the demands of daily practice constrained their ability to participate consistently in career advancement programmes.

The research further found that younger and mid-career pharmacists with fewer than 20 years of professional experience were significantly more concerned about the financial burden associated with professional development than their more senior counterparts.

In response, ACPN said it had incorporated targeted solutions into the CPACPI framework, including tiered, subsidised professional development grants aimed at reducing the financial burden on younger pharmacists.

The association also plans to deploy flexible and self-paced digital learning modules to enable practitioners to acquire additional competencies without significantly disrupting patient care.

Ezeh also called for stronger multi-agency enforcement against illegal medicine outlets and unaccredited vendors to protect professional practice and improve patient safety.

At the centre of the CPACPI framework is a five-band career progression structure intended to address the traditional career ceiling confronting community pharmacists.

The framework provides for five professional bands: Band 1, Community Pharmacist; Band 2, Senior Community Pharmacist; Band 3, Community Pharmacy Specialist; Band 4, Community Pharmacy Senior Specialist; and Band 5, Community Pharmacy Consultant.

Progression is based on measurable professional competencies, including specialised clinical care, mentorship, digital health integration and continuous quality improvement.

Beyond career progression, ACPN is advocating greater recognition of accredited community pharmacies as private-sector primary healthcare facilities.

“There is a pressing need for government authorities, policy-makers, and national health authorities to identify and designate qualified community pharmacies as official primary healthcare facility providers in the private sector,” Ezeh said.

He argued that community pharmacies are among the most accessible healthcare points for millions of Nigerians and should therefore be formally integrated into the national primary healthcare delivery architecture and health insurance system.

According to him, such integration would expand access to healthcare, improve patient outcomes and reduce pressure on already overstretched public health facilities.

The CPACPI initiative has therefore evolved beyond an internal professional development programme into a broader proposition covering workforce development, primary healthcare, Universal Health Coverage and medicine safety.

Its presentation at the FIP Congress also provided an opportunity for ACPN to demonstrate how solutions to healthcare workforce challenges developed in Nigeria could offer lessons for other low- and middle-income countries seeking to strengthen the contribution of community pharmacists to primary healthcare.

Ezeh, however, stressed that the sustainability of the framework would depend on collaboration among regulatory agencies, professional bodies, policymakers and other stakeholders.

“The long-term success of the CPACPI framework rests on our collective ability to bridge the gap between policy design and real-world execution,” he said.

He said regulatory support, financial accessibility, reduced workload barriers and stronger enforcement of market standards would be critical to ensuring that the career progression framework produces lasting results.

From its introduction in Nigeria in 2025 to its presentation at the FIP World Congress in Montreal in 2026, CPACPI has emerged as a key component of ACPN’s efforts to restructure community pharmacy practice around competency, professional advancement and stronger participation in primary healthcare delivery.