African leaders must not treat health as a charitable cost and instead position it as an investable, high-growth economic sector, President John Dramani Mahama has said.
The President said health sovereignty must be a priority for every African country as part of a broader strategy to secure the health and economic future of the continent's 1.4 billion people.
Speaking at the Alamein Africa Forum in El Alamein, Egypt, last Saturday, President Mahama said Africa's goal should be health sovereignty and economic and fiscal security for its people.
"Our goal is health sovereignty, economic and fiscal security for the 1.4 billion African people. For decades, African finance ministers and global investors have made a fundamental error.
They have treated health as a line-item cost and a social expenditure in their budgets to be funded only when there is money leftover," he said.
"Today, at the Alamein Africa Forum, we are moving beyond that outdated perspective.
Health is not a charitable cost. It is an investable, high-growth economic sector," he stressed.
Alamein Africa Forum
Co-organised by the government of Egypt, Afreximbank and AUDA-NEPAD, the forum brought together Africa's most influential decision-makers, including Heads of State and government representatives, in an unprecedented alliance of public and private-sector leadership.
The inaugural Alamein Africa Forum was established as a permanent African Business Forum to convene biennially in Egypt, assembling senior leaders from leading international and regional financial institutions and key actors driving transformative change across Africa's most critical sectors, from infrastructure, trade and critical minerals to digital innovation, health markets and the emerging industries reshaping the continent's economic identity.
The aim is to become the continent's premier gathering where political power meets entrepreneurial prowess, bridging the established engines of African growth with the new sectors defining its future.
Health investment
President Mahama underscored the need to invest in health, stating that it drove human capital, manufacturing, job creation and macroeconomic stability while citing global evidence.
"The arithmetic is indisputable.
The Copenhagen Consensus showed that a targeted package of basic emergency maternal and newborn care can yield $87 in economic and social returns for every single dollar that is invested.
The Lancet Commission established that falling mortality rates accounted for nearly a quarter of total income growth in developing economies in the early 2000s," he said.
He pointed to Africa's dangerous dependency, stating that the continent imported over 70 per cent of its pharmaceuticals and nearly 99 per cent of its vaccines, with tens of billions of dollars leaving African economies annually to purchase medicines abroad.
President Mahama indicated that traditional donor assistance was declining, with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) projections indicating health aid would decrease by 29 per cent to 46 per cent compared to 2024 levels.
He, however, indicated that governments could not fund the transition alone, and therefore called for private capital, industrial developers, commercial banks and sovereign funds to participate, through initiatives such as the Business United for Mothers, Babies and Youth, championed by President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania.
He urged African leaders and stakeholders to stop treating health as an expense item in their budgets and build the factories, integrate supply chains, fund innovators and secure the future of their citizens.
The President affirmed that the argument for the development of a vibrant local pharmaceutical manufacturing rested on four pillars, including a captive market set to grow to 2.5 billion people by 2050, saving foreign exchange through import substitution and the single continental market offered by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
"The African Continental Free Trade Area and African manufacturing plants do not serve a single country of 10 million or 30 million. It serves a single unified market of 1.4 billion consumers," he said.
President Mahama cited the Africa CDC's first pooled tender for maternal and child health products, which, by aggregating demand, achieved price reductions of more than 30 per cent, while assuring African manufacturers won 50 per cent of product lines.
He said health sovereignty meant health security for citizens, high-value jobs and affordability, noting Africa's structural paradox where nearly one million trained healthcare professionals and science graduates remained unemployed despite a shortage of six million health workers, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Continental initiatives
President Mahama pointed to Egypt's elimination of Hepatitis C, which dropped prevalence from 10 per cent to under 0.5 per cent by negotiating technology transfer and building domestic production through champions such as Eva Pharma and treating four million citizens locally, making Egypt the first country recognised by WHO on the path to eliminating Hepatitis C.
He also cited Nigeria's African Medical Centre of Excellence in Abuja, pioneered by Afreximbank and the King's College Hospital, tackling the $6 billion annual loss to outbound medical tourism.
On Ghana, he said the government was implementing the Accra Reset by expanding the National Health Insurance Scheme, introducing the free primary health care programme, establishing the Ghana Medical Trust Fund (MahamaCares) and empowering the Food and Drugs Authority and the National Vaccine Institute to transition the country from a consumer to a producer of health products.
To scale up such successes, he announced a new continental enabler.
"Today, we present the Health Investment and National Gateway, acronym HINGE. Developed with the African Medicines Agency, Institute Pasteur and Afrochampions, HINGE will become a digital platform that streamlines regulations, clinical validation and commercialisation into a unified process for innovators and investors," he said.
President Mahama added that through the Accra Reset Presidential Council, dedicated task forces and reformed inter-ministerial observatories would track capital flows, enforce policy commitments and dismantle non-tariff barriers across regional value chains.
