Health sovereignty a priority for 1.4b Africans – President Mahama declares

President John Dramani Mahama has urged African leaders to make health sovereignty a priority for their country as part of a broader strategy for the continent to achieve health sovereignty.

He said it was about time that Africa stopped treating health as a charitable cost and positioned it as an investable, high-growth economic sector.

Speaking at the Alamein Africa Forum on Saturday in El Alamein, Egypt today (Saturday, October 3, 2026), President Mahama added that Africa’s goal must be the health sovereignty and economic and fiscal security of its 1.4 billion people.

“Our goal is health sovereignty, and economic and fiscal security of 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 left over.

“Today, at the Alamein Africa Forum, we are moving beyond that outdated perspective.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 said.

**Health investment **

President Mahama underscored the need to invest in health, stating that it drives 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 imports 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 is declining, with OECD projections indicating health aid will decrease by 29 to 46 per cent compared to 2024 levels.

He, however, indicated that governments cannot fund the transition alone and called for private capital, industrial developers, commercial banks and sovereign funds to participate, through initiatives like 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.

AfCFTA

The President affirmed that the argument for the development of a vibrant local pharmaceutical manufacturing sector 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 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 ensuring African manufacturers won 50 percent of product lines.

He said health sovereignty means health security for citizens, high-value jobs and affordability, noting Africa’s structural paradox where nearly one million trained healthcare professionals and science graduates remain unemployed despite a shortage of 6 million health workers, according to the WHO.

Continental initiatives

President Mahama pointed to Egypt’s elimination of hepatitis C, which dropped prevalence from 10 percent to under 0.5 per cent by negotiating technology transfer and building domestic production through champions like Eva Pharma, and treating 4 million citizens locally, making Egypt the first country recognized 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 King’s College Hospital, tackling the $6 billion annual loss to outbound medical tourism.

On Ghana, he said the government is 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 Ghana 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, Enabler. 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.

He added that through the Accra Reset Presidential Council, dedicated task forces and reformed inter-ministerial observatories will track capital flows, enforce policy commitments and dismantle non-tariff barriers across regional value chains.