Sierra Leone has achieved over 70% reduction in maternal mortality over the last two decades. This is good progress for a health system once overwhelmed by conflict and chronic workforce shortages. This progress has been driven by a combination of interventions: stronger systems for tracking high-risk pregnancies, expanded midwifery capacity, improved quality of care, and a nationwide “300 Days Campaign” built around a simple but ambitious commitment to zero preventable maternal deaths, zero preventable child deaths, and zero, zero-dose children.

Across the session, speakers repeatedly returned to one point: preventing maternal and newborn deaths is not only about technology or funding. It is about whether the chain of care holds from community to clinic to referral centres and whether every actor in that chain understands the urgency of their role.

Malawi and Nigeria also shared lessons from implementing the Safer Births Bundle of Care. This approach combines simulation-based training, mentorship corners for nurses and midwives, newborn resuscitation skills, and emergency stabilisation procedures. The model is designed to help frontline health workers detect early warning signs and respond quickly before complications become fatal.

Civil society organisations and funders involved in scaling the programme argued that technical interventions alone are not enough. Advocacy, political visibility and community ownership are equally critical.

This point came through remarks by Doris Mollel of the Doris Mollel Foundation, who reflected on her advocacy for preterm babies and maternal health.

“When you speak, who are you speaking to and what are you saying?” she asked. “Health needs the loud and famous voices to gain the attention of politicians and policymakers.”

Her comments mirrored the prevailing concerns over funding cuts affecting life-saving interventions across Africa. African countries are trying to sustain progress in maternal and child health amid shrinking overseas development assistance, workforce shortages, and competing political priorities.

Yet Sierra Leone’s campaign suggests that momentum is still possible even within constrained systems.

What makes the 300-day initiative compelling is its reliance on disciplined coordination, visible leadership, and a shared national commitment to accountability, instead of dependence on a new policy architecture. The campaign turns survival into something measurable, public, and urgent.

For most African countries, especially Nigeria, where maternal mortality remains stubbornly high, the question is not whether solutions exist. Many already do. The harder question is whether the same level of unified action can be mobilised and sustained in a simple yet powerful resolution to say Zero preventable maternal, child deaths in the next one year.

Prof. Lukoye Atwoli, International President of WHSRM 2026, pulled the conversation away from comfort. “One of the unspoken intentions of this convening” he said “is to make people a little uncomfortable by having difficult conversations.”

With over 3,000 participants, the scale of the gathering was evident, but for Atwoli, the convening’s significance also lay in the specific actions that would follow.

Prof. Axel R. Pries, President of the World Health Summit, followed by situating that responsibility within a wider shift. He emphasised that Africa’s health sovereignty can only be built through partnerships within countries, across regions and between sectors. He pointed to the need to move beyond fragmented, under-resourced arrangements toward more coordinated, sustainable and transparent systems that deliver at scale.

The Regional Director for WHO AFRO, Dr. Mohamed Janabi, brought the point down to practice. He noted that the summit showed what alignment can look like when governments, institutions and regions work together. For the first time, three WHO regions – AFRO, EMRO and Europe – came together around a shared agenda, reinforcing the idea that health threats do not respect borders and cannot be addressed in isolation.

“Telling people to wash hands means little if water is kilometres away,” he said, pointing to work in the Democratic Republic of Congo where partners installed water infrastructure, upgraded laboratories and strengthened local health facilities during an outbreak. The result was not just containment, but a more resilient system left behind.

By the time Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya, Prof. Kithure Kindiki took the floor, that message had settled into something firmer:

“The message from Nairobi 2026 is simple and direct. Africa’s health future will not be given to us. It will be built by us. It will require political courage, institutional discipline, sustained investment and an unshakable conviction that African lives matter equally on the global stage.”

His remarks brought together the key issues raised over the three days. Domestic financing, local manufacturing, and stronger institutions were no longer treated as aspirations but were presented as conditions for progress.

The summit also surfaced tangible signs of movement. Two stand out: the launch of a continental immunisation strategy and the establishment of a high-level ministerial committee on global health architecture reform.

What stood out in Nairobi was not the scale of the problem, but the direction of the response.

Whether that direction holds will depend on what follows — in how governments translate commitments into policy, institutions coordinate investment, and systems deliver in practice, not just on paper.

The conversation, moderated by AMREF Health Africa CEO, Dr Githinji Gitahi, began by highlighting the issue of trust. “Many Africans”, he noted, “still do not trust products made on the continent. It’s almost like the ones that are imported are more superior to the ones that we manufacture here and that narrative must change by creating globally acceptable quality products across the continent that are trusted.

Setting the tone for the session, Ibrahima Socé Fall, CEO of Institut Pasteur de Dakar (IPD), pushed back against the idea that sovereignty can simply be declared:

“Sovereignty cannot be just a slogan. We need to create the ecosystem. We need to be able to produce vaccine from end to end, starting with technical expertise, the talent and the workforce needed, this is the minimum requirement”

His point speaks to a deeper challenge facing African health systems. The shift from dependence on imported vaccines and diagnostics to building integrated, self-sustaining manufacturing capacity is complex. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the risks of that dependence, as global supply chains faltered and African countries found themselves at the back of the queue for life-saving products.

Fall pointed to Senegal’s experience as proof that progress is possible, while acknowledging how complex the path remains. At Institut Pasteur de Dakar, he noted, the organisation has expanded beyond its long-standing yellow fever vaccine production to invest in a vaccine research centre, clinical trials, and new candidates for diseases such as Marburg, Lassa fever and Rift Valley fever.

However, supply chains remain fragile and largely controlled from outside the continent. Africa still lacks a coherent market for its own products. Procurement systems dominated by global actors such as Gavi and UNICEF leave little room for African manufacturers to grow at scale.

Fall called for a continental approach. Countries need to align production with their comparative advantages and build a market that can sustain the industry over time.

From Kenya, Biovax Institute’s Richard Oduor reinforced the scale of the gap. Africa currently produces less than one percent of the vaccines it uses. Closing that gap would need more than infrastructure. It requires building capabilities across the entire value chain, from early-stage research and drug substance manufacturing to formulation, packaging, regulation and distribution.

For Biovax, the strategy is practical. Start where capacity already exists, such as fill and finish, then gradually build backward into more complex stages through technology transfer. Even this approach depends on sustained financing, strong negotiation capacity, and the ability to attract skilled talent back to the continent.

The session made one thing clear: Africa’s vaccine manufacturing ambitions will not be won in laboratories alone. They will be won in procurement rooms, policy conversations, and the long-term commitment to train and retain the scientists the continent is already producing. What remains missing is the coordinated architecture — the markets, financing, and political will — that turns isolated progress into continental self-reliance. Sovereignty, as Fall reminded the room, cannot be a slogan.

The session, “Trust in Science: Advancing Quality Health Information in the Age of Digital Health,” which was hosted by Nature Commission brought together Mercy Korir (Willow Health), Vivianne Ihekweazu (Nigeria Health Watch), Rebecca Ivic (University of Alabama), Nancy Booker (Aga Khan University), Ozge Tuncalp (Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp), Ben Johnson (Nature Commission), and Jacqueline Kitulu (World Medical Association).

Discussions reiterated how the health information landscape is quickly shifting. Digital platforms and artificial intelligence have expanded access to health information, but they have also made it harder to distinguish evidence from distortion.

Traditional gatekeepers of health information such as journals, ministries, and academic institutions no longer determine how information reaches the public. Today, social media platforms, messaging apps, and algorithm-driven feeds increasingly shape what people see, share, and believe.

Examples were made visible across African contexts.

Vivianne Ihekweazu, the managing director of Nigeria Health Watch described how digital platforms have transformed health communication, but also created a space where people often rely on peer networks and online sources over trained health professionals when making decisions.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation influenced health behaviours, including the use of unverified remedies and vaccine hesitancy in some communities. Those patterns have continued to shape how people engage with health systems long after the emergency phase ended.

“False information travels around the world as the truth is tying its shoes,”

said Mercy Korir of Willow Health, capturing the speed at which misinformation now moves compared to verified evidence.

For Jacqueline Kitulu, president of the World Medical Association, the issue is not only technical but ethical. “We are surrounded by health information, but much of it is unverified, misinterpreted, or deliberately misleading,” she said. “Patients have a right to reliable, evidence-based health information.”

Responses to this shift are beginning to take shape. Rebecca Ivic of the University of Alabama highlighted ongoing work to develop global indicators for assessing the quality of health information, while Booker, Tuncalp, and Johnson stressed the need for stronger governance frameworks and greater accountability in how evidence is produced, communicated, and acted upon.

The session closed with a clear consensus: no single intervention will fix the problem. Building trust requires working across multiple layers simultaneously — accurate information, relatable communication, stronger health literacy, and, importantly, coherence between what people encounter online and what they hear from health workers in clinics and communities.

For Africa, the urgency is clear. Health systems are already overstretched, and misinformation routinely outpaces the public health responses designed to counter it. In this environment, rebuilding trust in health information is not a secondary concern — it is as fundamental to survival as the care itself.

In 2000, Sierra Leone recorded 1,682 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births — the highest maternal mortality ratio in the world. By 2023, that figure had fallen to 354. Dr. Kenneth came to Abuja, Nigeria, not to celebrate that number, but to propose that West Africa builds the system behind it together.

Presenting the Freetown Charter, Dr. Kenneth was deliberate about what drives change. “The buzzword is not the technology. It is not the digitalisation that is going to save lives. Make no mistake, it is actually the decisions that we make and the actions that we take that change things. But digital and innovative technology can position us in such a way that we act fast in response, remain accountable and accurate, and make progress in a very short time.”

Sierra Leone’s journey illustrates exactly that. During the Ebola crisis, the country developed an electronic case-based disease surveillance system, shifting from aggregate to real-time reporting. That system was later adapted for maternal and child health. Every death is now reported immediately. Every week, a national review call connects leadership, specialists, district officers, UN partners, and regulatory bodies. A midwife’s absence, an unsigned supply document, a delayed referral —failures that once went undetected now surface within hours.

The data has also driven direct clinical decisions. When supply chain data flagged heat instability in oxytocin stocks, Sierra Leone switched to heat-stable carbetocin, reducing deaths from postpartum bleeding. When data revealed high anaemia rates, the country shifted from iron and folate to multiple micronutrient supplements. “Data must lead to action,” Dr. Kenneth told delegates.

The Freetown Charter proposes seven priority areas: Data governance and surveillance, Digital infrastructure and interoperability, Contextual and Innovation, Human capacity & workforce, Accountability & Performance, Data Sovereignty & Ethics, and Sustainable Financing. Its targets include institutionalising maternal and child death audits, adopting digital tracking tools across health facilities, and developing AI-based tools by 2030.

“This will not be the end, but the beginning of a collective effort to strengthen health systems across the region”

~ Dr. Satti Kenneth, Chief Medical Officer, Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone’s experience offers an early indication that the Charter’s ambitions are not merely aspirational, but actionable.

Drug resistance in West Africa is spreading and the region’s data systems are not keeping pace. Drug resistance is spreading across West Africa’s borders faster than the region’s surveillance systems can detect it.

This was the central concern raised during the session on West African Health Organisation's (WAHO) Regional Malaria Elimination Framework. A recurring call from health experts was for a regional network that allows Member States to share drug resistance data in real time. Strengthening monitoring committees to track both drug and insecticide resistance was seen as equally urgent. The reasoning was straightforward: resistant strains spread across borders faster than national surveillance systems can detect them. Without coordinated, cross-border data exchange, one country’s emerging resistance problem becomes a regional challenge.

Delegates stressed the need to translate these technical recommendations into ministerial-level resolutions to ensure formal adoption and accountability across Member States. Not recommendations that sit in a report - but commitments that bind governments to action.

“Each country already has its own national strategic plan. Our role as ECOWAS is to support, coordinate, and harmonise efforts across Member States.” said a WAHO Representative.

The conversation moved from data systems to the people those systems are meant to protect. Delegates emphasised the role of communities in malaria control - and specifically on who communities trust. Traditional and religious leaders, they argued, are central to health communication. Their formal integration into malaria strategies was strongly supported, with delegates noting that community acceptance of interventions, from bed-nets to vaccines, often hinges on endorsement from these figures.

Community health workers received similar attention. Already embedded at the front lines of care, they were recognised as essential actors in malaria surveillance. Delegates called for strengthened training and for malaria monitoring responsibilities to be formally incorporated into their roles, a practical step that costs relatively little but extends the reach of the entire framework.

Delegates called for the framework to explicitly address how gender shapes malaria exposure, healthcare access, and caregiving responsibilities. Urging that programming account for the different ways men and women experience and respond to malaria.

Private sector inclusion is also critical for the success of the framework, the experts emphasised. As private channels supply much of the region’s medicines, delegates raised concerns about the quality of medicines and the need for stronger regulatory compliance, noting that substandard and falsified medicines accelerate resistance. They called for local manufacturers to be engaged as active partners producing and supplying quality-assured medicines and commodities, reducing the region’s dependence on external suppliers.

Dr Monique Murindahabi, Global Health Expert and Consultant, presented a regional framework designed to move countries from fragmented control efforts to coordinated elimination by 2030.

Developed through expert consultations in Conakry in March 2025, the framework positions governance, data, commodities, innovation, and financing as interconnected levers for impact rather than isolated interventions.

At the centre is Pillar One: Governance and Coordination, which Dr Murindahabi described as the foundation of progress. While political commitment already exists through the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, she stressed that the real test lies in implementation. She called for stronger regional coordination mechanisms and cross-border collaboration, given that malaria does not respect national boundaries.

“Cross-border coordination is essential. Without harmonised cross-border collaboration and notification systems, malaria elimination will not be possible”

~ Dr Monique Murindahabi

Pillar Two: Data Systems, Surveillance, and Resistance focuses on strengthening regional intelligence. Although countries have improved use of District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS2) platforms, she called for a real-time ECOWAS malaria dashboard and stronger integration of national data systems. She also warned of rising drug and insecticide resistance, urging expanded molecular surveillance, digital tools such as geospatial mapping, and improved cross-border reporting.

Pillar Three: Treatment and Community Health Systems, Dr Murindahabi emphasised safeguarding first-line therapies while preparing for resistance through diversified treatment options. She emphasised community health workers as the backbone of early detection and response. “Community systems remain the first point of care and must be fully strengthened,” she said, also calling for better integration of private sector and traditional health actors.

Pillar Four: Manufacturing, Supply Chains, and Pooled Procurement addresses efficiency and equity in access to commodities. Dr Murindahabi proposed a regional pooled procurement system to reduce costs and prevent stock imbalances across countries. She also pointed to emerging innovations such as Nigeria’s planning model for malaria commodities and discussions on local manufacturing of mosquito nets as opportunities for regional scale-up.

Pillar Five: Research, Innovation, and Capacity Strengthening, calls for better use of existing laboratories, stronger regional research networks, and improved collaboration between academic institutions.

Pillar Six: Community Engagement and Behaviour Change focus on trust and ownership. Dr Murindahabi stressed that even effective interventions fail without community acceptance, urging engagement of traditional and religious leaders, alongside civil society, to drive uptake. “Elimination depends on communities understanding and owning the response,” she said.

The final pillar, Financing and Strategic Partnerships, highlights the need for increased domestic investment while leveraging regional and global partnerships. She called for innovative financing approaches and better integration of malaria into broader health financing systems.

Across all seven pillars, three principles were emphasised: strong governance, data-driven decision-making, and accountability. Dr Murindahabi concluded by stating that a malaria-free ECOWAS region is achievable, but only through coordinated action, sustained investment, and regional solidarity.

Malaria claims the lives of children under five nearly every minute with sub-Saharan Africa bearing the heaviest burden.

This sobering reality hung over the Health Experts Meeting in Sierra Leone, where WAHO presented two consequential documents: a Regional Malaria Elimination Framework and an account of how its budget is evolving. Together, they told one story. Ambition is not the problem. Money is.

The malaria framework, co-created with experts at a meeting in Conakry in March 2025, is structured around seven pillars: governance and coordination, surveillance and data systems, treatment and community health, supply chain and commodities, research and innovation, community engagement, and financing.

Dr. Monique Murindahabi, a WAHO consultant, who led the presentation was direct. “Malaria does not respect borders. We cannot talk about elimination if neighbouring regions do not align their policies.” Cross-border case notification, harmonised drug resistance protocols, pooled procurement, and a real-time regional disease dashboard are among the framework’s centrepieces.

The African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) has already committed to elimination by 2030, however, participants pushed back on timelines.

On commodities, Dr. Murindahabi was equally explicit. “If we are serious about elimination, we must ensure that when a case arrives at a health facility, it is tested and treated. Commodities must therefore be available at all health facilities.”

Commodities, however, are only one part of the equation. The question of financing soon followed.

Dr Aruba Fallah, WAHO’s Director for Administration and Finance highlighted during his presentation that the WAHO’s approved budget has grown from roughly $47 million in 2018 to $71.6 million in 2025, a trajectory that looks healthy until you examine what is funding it. In 2018, external partners dominated, and by 2023, ECOWAS’s community levy had grown to surpass partner contributions, a sign of growing ownership.

However, the 2024 and 2025 figures are alarming. USAID, the African Development Bank, and Germany’s KfW — once pillars of WAHO’s external funding — have dramatically reduced from the ledger. In 2025, KfW accounted for 41% of remaining external funds, with USAID contributing just 2%.

Against that backdrop, Dr. Fallah set out an ambitious target.

"We have a projection to double our budget from $47 million in 2018 to $100 million in 2026… So there is a strong need for domestic resource mobilisation to achieve this"

~Dr. Aruba Fallah

The ambition is clear, but with ECOWAS covering just 26% of WAHO’s budget and traditional donors retreating, the path to $100 million runs through domestic resource mobilisation — a conversation the region can no longer defer.

This makes what comes next consequential.

“A malaria-free ECOWAS region is possible,” Dr. Murindahabi told delegates. “It is an achievable goal with political will, adequate investment, and regional solidarity.”

That solidarity must now be financial. Without it, West Africa’s boldest public health ambition risks becoming its most expensive unfulfilled promise.

Speaking for parliamentarians from 11 African countries, Hon. Lilani Brinkman, a Namibian Member of Parliament, framed preventable maternal deaths as a leadership issue, not just health. “We already know what works, Midwives can provide 90% of all essential reproductive, maternal and newborn, child and adolescent health services”. She argued for countries to invest in recruiting, training and retaining them, “because investing in midwives, is investing in saving lives.” she said, pointing to workforce investment as one of the known solutions to accelerate progress.

Brinkman presented joint parliamentary commitments to achieving Every Woman, Every Newborn Everywhere targets. They pledged to advocate for dedicated financing to ensure life-saving maternal and newborn commodities reach underserved populations. They also resolved to strengthening regional collaboration through pooled procurement and market-shaping mechanisms to improve affordability and expand access.

Central to the commitments, Hon. Brinkman recommended achieving the Abuja Declaration target of allocating at least 15 percent of national budgets to health. She cautioned against returning home without action.

“We cannot continue to gather in conferences, speak passionately, and then return home unchanged. This must be the turning point.”

~ Hon. Lilani Brinkman

In his closing speech, the Principal Secretary, State Department for Medical Services Kenya, Dr. Ouma Oluga, shifted attention to what he described as the most critical weakness in maternal and newborn health systems. This is the widening gap between what is planned and what is implemented on the ground. “Preventable maternal and neonatal deaths is the greatest indictment of any healthcare system and the best indicator of health system performance,” he said, noting that “we must do everything to reverse these trends.”

He called for building stronger accountability systems across governments, health workforce, and development partners, urging a shift away from process-driven financing toward measurable impact. “In the past, we have done health financing for reports, not for results. Conference after conference, we’ve presented very good reports of the work that we’ve done, even when we have not made actual progress and this has left a gap” Oluga noted.

The conversations at IMNHC 2026 emphasised that reducing maternal and newborn deaths will depend less on new strategies and more on execution. The discussions pointed toward aligning political commitment with measurable delivery where financing follows impact, data drives accountability, and partnerships reinforce national priorities. If this momentum continues beyond Nairobi, the conference may help turn shared ambition into real improvements in care and survival for women and children across Africa.

Presenting the global overview of maternal and newborn health, Dr Allisyn Moran, Unit Head for Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal and Newborn Health at the World Health Organization, outlined the scope of the challenge. “In 2023, we had 4.5 million deaths, and we still have 4.5 million deaths of women during pregnancy and childbirth, as well as newborns and stillbirths,” she said, noting that “progress has really not accelerated since 2015/2016.”

She reminded delegates of the 90-90-80-80 targets introduced in 2023, which focus on antenatal care, skilled birth attendance, early postnatal care, and access to emergency services.

“These targets have been the driving force behind the different work that’s been going on at country level, Yet, we’re still far from the targets that we were hoping to achieve by 2030”

~ Dr Allisyn Moran

On the importance of equity and quality, Dr Allisyn stressed that coverage alone is not enough, highlighting the need for strong health systems, a skilled workforce, reliable commodities, and actionable data as essential building blocks for progress.

Building on this, Dr Gagan Gupta, Unit Lead, Maternal and Newborn Health, UNICEF, shared early EWENE-CSA 2026 findings. He noted that although many countries have strengthened policies and data systems, these gains have yet to translate into real improvements for maternal and newborn outcomes. “The progress is mixed,” he explained. “We have strong frameworks on paper, but coverage of essential services and reductions in mortality remain frustratingly slow.” This message points to a critical disconnect between planning and implementation, showing that policy advances alone are not enough without effective delivery on the ground.

Dr Gupta further noted gaps in financing and implementation identified in the report. “Countries said that they have a maternal and newborn health plan, but only 15% of them have it fully financed,” he said, adding that high-impact interventions such as emergency obstetric care and care for small and sick newborns “are very much underfunded and under prioritised.”

Despite these challenges, Dr Gupta acknowledged policy gains.

“We have seen major gains in policy shifts. Last time we reported, 59% of countries said they had moved to eight antenatal care visits. Now, 83% of countries have made that shift. Similarly, the proportion of countries with a birth companion policy has increased from 54% to 78%, and for postnatal care, a marked improvement has been noticed,” he said.

Ahead of the 2026 World Health Assembly where the final report will be presented, the focus is shifting from what must be done to how quickly and equitably commitments can be turned into measurable improvements for women and newborns.

Despite years of global commitments, from maternal health action plans to universal health coverage agendas, progress has remained uneven. Speakers pointed to systems that are not delivering at scale, with inefficiencies, fragmented planning, and weak coordination undermining progress.

In his speech, Africa CDC Director General, Dr Jean Kaseya, emphasised that Africa is at a defining moment, shifting the conversation away from technical fixes to something more political and urgent.

“Africa is facing its own defining moment. We are confronted with an unacceptable maternal neonatal mortality rate...It’s not just a health issue… For me, it’s a justice issue, a development issue, a sovereignty issue. A continent that cannot protect its mothers and children cannot claim full sovereignty over its future”

~ Dr Jean Kaseya

Kaseya proposed a “New Deal” for maternal and child health in Africa. It was a call for system-wide transformation rather than incremental change, tied to a broader continental vision of health security and sovereignty, built on domestic financing, stronger primary healthcare systems, digital infrastructure, and local manufacturing of essential commodities.

The shift from commitment to execution was echoed in the opening remarks delivered on behalf of Kenya’s President, Dr William Ruto, by Cabinet Secretary for Health, Hon. Aden Duale, who positioned the country as a testing ground for what accelerated delivery could look like.

“We are rolling out the Rapid Results Initiative to accelerate reductions in maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality,” he said. “The RRI is about urgency… tracking results in real time, and delivering measurable change where it matters most.”

Duale pointed to Kenya’s expanding Social Health Authority, investments in primary healthcare, and a growing digital health system as examples of how policy is being translated into practice particularly by reducing financial barriers and improving access to care.

Together, the messages from the opening plenary reflected a broader shift in African health policy. Maternal and newborn health is no longer being framed solely as a sectoral issue, but as a test of governance, financing, and state capacity. From universal health coverage to domestic resource mobilisation, from digital systems to local manufacturing, the agenda outlined in Nairobi ties maternal survival to the continent’s wider push for health sovereignty.

The Summit opened with Ghana’s Minister of Health, Hon. Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, welcoming delegates by framing the summit as a launchpad for action rather than another stop on the conference circuit. “This gathering is more than an annual event. It is a call to mobilise strategic investment, forge meaningful alliances and accelerate the emergence of world class resilient healthcare systems across the continent,” he said. His opening address painted a bold picture of Africa’s health landscape in 2050, where population growth becomes a competitive advantage if backed by strong reforms, regional manufacturing hubs, and proper technology transfer.

Ghana’s Minister of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, in her statement titled “Made in Africa, Saving Africa” argued that the continent’s long-term health security depends on producing what it consumes. For too long, Africa has relied on distant suppliers for medicines and medical technologies, a dependency that drains resources and magnifies vulnerability. She urged leaders and investors to focus on six enablers: transparent policies and regulatory frameworks, modern infrastructure and capacity building, long-term financing and smart partnerships, regional integration, innovation and technology transfer, and sustainability. The goal, she stressed, is to build “world-class local health manufacturing ecosystems” capable of serving African needs first.

The session continued with the President of Ghana, H.E John Dramani Mahama, who took the stage to deliver his keynote address, not just as a statesman, but as a voice for Africa’s health future and sovereignty.

“Health systems are being redesigned, supply chains are being rewired, and new geopolitical realities are forcing every region to rethink the issue of resilience. These transformations present both a challenge and an opportunity, but the truth is simple, Africa cannot afford to be a bystander. Africa must be a participant across our continent”

~ President John Dramani Mahama

President Mahama reminded delegates that the continent still carries deep inequities, fragile supply chains, and insufficient investment in primary healthcare, vulnerabilities that were exposed during COVID-19, when Africa was often the last to receive critical support.

A shared concern among the speakers was the challenge of structural dependency and long-term under-investment as they acknowledged how global market shocks repeatedly expose Africa’s inability to manufacture what it needs, when it needs it.

The real test, however, will be whether the alliances formed at WHX 2025 translates into the implementation, financing, and infrastructure that can anchor a truly resilient health future in Africa.

In her opening remarks, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Diene Keita offered an important reminder:

“Family planning is not only a matter of health, it is a matter of rights. When women and adolescent girls have access to contraceptives, their pregnancies are more likely to be planned and safe, they are more likely to complete school, be employed and fulfil their potential, their children are healthier, and their societies are more prosperous.”

She warned that despite nearly one billion women using modern contraception today, progress is fragile—particularly for those displaced by conflict, living in poverty, or facing climate shocks. These inequities, she argued, demand faster, bolder action.

The urgency of this echoed throughout the youth pre-conference, where young advocates pushed for communities to interrogate its own habits. In a session led by Reproductive Health Advocates, Esenam Amuzu and Goodness Ogeyi Odey, participants were asked to take what they called an “Equity Pause” — a deliberate moment to examine whether their work in advocacy, communication, programming policymaking or budgeting leaves anyone behind. It was a simple idea with uncomfortable implications: equity cannot remain a theme for panels; it must be embedded in how decisions are made, how programmes are designed, and who is allowed to contribute to them.

At the heart of these discussions was a shared recognition of the pressures African countries face. Years of heavy dependence on external donors have left family planning programmes vulnerable to fluctuations in political priorities and global financing. As support declines, governments are forced to confront difficult questions about sustainability, domestic resource mobilisation, and the true meaning of health sovereignty. The pushbacks in the reproductive health space, from funding restrictions to gag rules and shrinking civic freedoms, only heighten the stakes.

For African policymakers, advocates, and practitioners, the message from Bogotá was clear: the path forward will require smarter investments, strategic integration of services, and procurement systems that maximise returns in tight fiscal environments. It will also demand more intentional communication and the active involvement of people most affected by reproductive health policies. These are not abstract aspirations; they are the practical ingredients of equity.

If there was a unifying thread at ICFP 2025, it was that the continent cannot afford for equity to remain a buzzword. As countries push toward self-reliance, their success will hinge on whether equity becomes the organising principle for decisions made long after the conference halls empty — in clinics, community rooms, budget offices, and national assemblies across Africa. Because at the end of the day, equity is something you do, not something you say.

Dr. Amit Thakker, Executive Chairman at Africa Health Business, opened with a clear call:

“Health care doesn’t begin at the hospital; it begins at home.”

He noted that roughly 70% of outpatient ailments could be avoided, pointing to prevention and early detection as the most cost-effective tools for better population health. Dr. Thakker pushed beyond the usual calls for more money to argue for smarter, more context-sensitive financing: strategic allocation that prioritises prevention, removes geographic barriers, and extends services, equipment and trained personnel beyond urban centres.

With Official Development Assistance declining, Dr. Thakker urged countries to innovate domestically. He proposed bespoke, country-level health bonds, citizen-driven instruments designed to generate resilient, transparent financing for primary care, and appealed for private sector commitments, notably the idea that even 1% of corporate profits channelled to health could be transformative. He also advocated for crowdsourced platforms to democratise contributions to community health and for socially responsible corporations to embed health equity into their core missions.

Dr. Christine Kaseba, Former First Lady of Zambia, shifted the conversation to people-centred care for women, adolescents and children. Challenging narrow definitions of “women’s health,” she emphasised that care must span adolescence, pregnancy, motherhood, menopause and the years beyond. Even with maternal mortality rates declining from 727 to 441 deaths per 100,000 live births, Africa still accounts for about 70% of global maternal deaths. In 2023, 77% of adolescent girls with HIV globally were in Africa, highlighting persistent vulnerabilities.

Dr. Kaseba argued that the drivers of poor health outcomes are systemic: weak and costly PHC, fragmented vertical programmes, workforce shortages and burnout, low community engagement, and systems that fail to respect cultural contexts. Her prescription is practical: shift to community-centred, human-centred PHC; invest in community health workers and mid-level providers; integrate maternal, newborn, child and adolescent services; scale digital tools for better data and decision-making; and mobilise domestic resources while strengthening local manufacturing of essential commodities. Most importantly, she said, mothers, adolescents and children must be partners, not merely beneficiaries, in designing the systems that serve them.

Dr. Mazyanga Lucy Mazaba, Regional Director for the Eastern Africa Regional Co-coordinating Centre of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, closed the session by stressing another existential threat to PHC: antimicrobial resistance (AMR). She warned that AMR undermines the gains of primary care by turning once-treatable infections into expensive, complex problems and straining already fragile health systems. Her priorities were clear: strengthen surveillance and diagnostics at the primary-care level, implement stewardship programmes, secure reliable supply chains for quality medicines, and invest in local capacity for manufacturing and quality assurance.

Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, CEO of FIND, reflected on what it would take to truly rebuild Africa’s health systems from within.

“If we could press the reset button, I would start by addressing what I consider to be a fundamental truth, that no country can outsource its health security, or indeed its health care system to others to run, to contribute, or to determine.”

~ Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa

He argued that if Africa is to achieve universal health coverage and be ready for future pandemics, it must invest in its own capacity to detect, respond, and deliver care. “Without testing, there is no treatment, no prevention, and no data to drive decisions,” he said, urging governments to see diagnostics not as a cost but as an investment in economic sovereignty.

Adetifa’s analogy of dancing to a new drumbeat struck a chord in the room. He urged countries to be guided by their own national priorities, not by external agendas because only those who wear the shoe know where it hurts.

Picking up the baton, Dr. Nkem Okeke, Founder and CEO of Medicalincs and BIND Associates, brought the private sector lens. With development assistance declining, she argued for smarter, value-based financing and public–private partnerships that work for Africans.

Reminding the audience that while the private sector’s goal is to make profit, “it should not be at the expense of somebody’s life.” Pointing to trends in health investment across Africa, she observed that much of the funding still flows into insurance, diagnostics, and retail pharmacy, which are often driven by external priorities rather than African realities. For Okeke, private investment in health must align with the continent’s needs, not just market opportunities.

Dr. Folorunso Fasina, the country team leader for the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in South Sudan, drew attention to the climate crisis as Africa’s most urgent and underfunded health challenge. Through the story of a farmer in East Africa impacted by drought, he traced the link between extreme weather, food insecurity, animal health, and antimicrobial resistance.

Drought reduces crop yields, causing food insecurity and pushing wildlife closer to human settlements, which increases interactions between wild and domestic animals. Indiscriminate antibiotics use in livestock fuel antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This cycle undermines human and animal health and deepens economic losses. Fashina stressed that the solution lies in integrated, climate-resilient health systems that unite agriculture, environment, and health sectors under one coordinated plan, preventing crises before they erupt.

Emphasising the urgency of action, he noted: “Climate change is not just a separate environmental issue. It is a single greatest threat multiplier to health and economic security in Africa. We need to address it through a One Health nexus, which is not an expense but the most critical investment we can make in our continent’s future”

Prof. Serge Blaise Emaleu, a global health expert in Emergency Preparedness, Readiness and Response, opened with a reminder: “Africa shoulders 24% of the global burden of disease, yet receives less than 2% of global health research funding. This stark disparity reflects a deep structural inequity, where the greatest health needs exist, the least investment follows.” He noted that over 90% of the vaccines used on the continent are imported, exposing a dangerous dependence on external systems. For Emaleu, building local research and manufacturing capacity is about preparedness, equity, and long-term health security.

From a humanitarian and implementation perspective, Etleva (Eva) Kadilli, UNICEF’s Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, emphasised that the move toward local manufacturing must be anchored in access and equity. She outlined UNICEF’s vision of collaboration with the Africa CDC and other continental actors to ensure that the benefits of regional production reach every community, especially those on the margins. Manufacturing in Africa, she stressed, must be matched by inclusive distribution and regulatory trust.

Bringing the political and structural dimension into focus, Dr. Blade Nzimande, South Africa’s Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, issued a call to action: Africa’s R&D ecosystem can only succeed when leadership, financing, and governance move seamlessly.

“We need heads of state to set and champion clear continental investment targets, finance ministers must align domestic budgets and incentives, and health ministers must ensure national research agendas reflect local disease priorities.”

~ Dr. Blade Nzimande

Nzimande outlined five interconnected pillars for a resilient African innovation system: funding, human capital, infrastructure and technology, policy and regulation, and partnerships. Each reinforces the other, from financing research to training talent, harmonising regulatory systems, and linking science to equitable access. “When these elements are synchronised,” he said, “Africa can move from plans and pledges to production and performance.”

With coordinated political leadership, sustainable financing, and cross-sector collaboration, Africa can shift from dependency to sovereignty, turning its vast potential into a powerful engine for health security, economic growth, and global partnership. As Nzimande concluded, “The time is now, and the future is made in Africa.”

The Conference which is taking place in Durban, South Africa, under the theme “Moving Towards Self-Reliance to Achieve Universal Health Coverage and Health Security in Africa,” is co-hosted by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), and the Government of South Africa, in collaboration with AfricaBio’s 8th Annual BIO Africa Convention. Participants gathered to continue charting Africa’s course towards resilient health systems and greater self-reliance in healthcare delivery.

In his opening speech, Dr. Nhlanhla Msomi, CEO of AfricaBio, urged African scientists and innovators to take ownership of the continent’s biotechnology future by developing homegrown innovation models, moving away from dependency on borrowed technologies and imported ideas.

Founded 26 years ago, Msomi said AfricaBio was born out of a recognition that the voices of African scientists were often absent in conversations shaping global science and innovation.

“Biotechnology offers an opportunity for the African continent to leapfrog other technology-driven industries because, at the time we started, there were no legacy issues, but over the past 25 years, we have seen that legacy issues can be manufactured and as a result, we can be left behind.”

~ Dr. Nhlanhla Msomi

The reference to “legacy issues” points to the growing structural and policy barriers that have emerged within the continent, hindering the pace of innovation and making it harder for Africa to maintain its early advantage in biotechnology.

He emphasised that Africa must move from research for discovery’s sake to innovation with impact, guided by public health priorities defined by institutions such as the Africa CDC.

AfricaBio, he said, is hoping to work with the Africa CDC to establish a drug discovery and development platform based on the continent’s pathogen priority list. The initiative aims to direct research efforts toward diseases that affect African populations, catalysing the continent’s intellectual and physical infrastructure for science and innovation.

Dr. Msomi underscored that the biotech mission is not only about health, but a lot of emphasis is also placed on entrepreneurship for developing sustainable industries of the future which will be driven by young African scientists and innovators.