As Africa’s health sector reels from the potential blowout of a freeze on USAID funding, the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) has launched an 18.2-million-dollar five-year roadmap targeting pharmaceutical autonomy. Looking to boost pharmaceutical self-sufficiency to around 50%, the Plan has identified 24 medical products for local manufacturing.
The ambitious initiative was launched on the sidelines of the African Union summit last week with several senior officials attending the ceremony at the Radisson Blu Hotel. While Africa shoulders 25% of the world’s global burden of disease, the continent manufactures just around 3% of its medicine supply.
Speaking during the launch ceremony, Senait Fisseha (Prof), Vice President of Global Programs at the Susan T. Buffet Foundation underscored the need to manage reliance on imports. She referred to the vulnerabilities of the pharmaceutical supply chain on a continent that faces a serious funding gap in the health sector.
“It is exacerbated by the recent cuts in global health funding by USAID which c
ould amount to 60 billion dollars,” Senait noted.
She also noted the need to reform the approach towards the health sector as funding dries up globally.
“I’m disappointed about the global budget cuts, but I’m also hoping they will force us to reimagine a different way of doing things. We cannot make progress by continuing the same approaches of the last 20 or 30 years,” the Professor noted.
The roadmap also aims to address the structural, regulatory, and financial challenges impeding pharmaceutical manufacturing on the continent. According to NEPAD’s 2024 annual report, improving the African health system faces a $66 billion annual funding gap.
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