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Africa’s Health Financing in a New Era

Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) (2025) CC

Africa’s health sector is facing an unprecedented financing crisis, driven by a sharp decline of 70% in Official Development Assistance (ODA) from 2021 to 2025 and deep-rooted structural vulnerabilities. This collapse is placing immense pressure on Africa’s already fragile health systems as ODA ...is seen as the backbone of critical health programs: pandemic preparedness, maternal and child health services, disease control programs are all at risk, threatening Sustainable Development Goal 3 and Universal Health Coverage. Compounding this is Africa’s spiraling debt, with countries expected to service USD 81 billion by 2025—surpassing anticipated external financing inflows—further eroding fiscal space for health investments. Level of domestic resources is low. TThe Abuja Declaration of 2001, a pivotal commitment made by African Union (AU) member states, aimed to reverse this trend by pledging to allocate at least 15% of national budgets to the health sector. However, more than two decades later, only three countries—Rwanda, Botswana, and Cabo Verde—have consistently met or exceeded this target (WHO, 2023). In contrast, over 30 AU member states remain well below the 10% benchmark, with some allocating as little as 5–7% of their national budgets to health. In addition, only 16 (29%) of African countries currently have updated versions of National Health Development Plan (NHDP) supported by a National Health Financing Plan (NHFP). These two documents play a critical role in driving internal resource mobilisation. At the same time, public health emergencies are surging, rising 41%—from 152 in 2022 to 213 in 2024—exposing severe under-resourcing of health infrastructure and workforce. Recurring outbreaks (Mpox, Ebola, cholera, measles, Marburg…) alongside effects of climate change and humanitarian crises in Eastern DRC, the Sahel, and Sudan, are overwhelming systems stretched by chronic underfunding. The situation is worsened by Africa’s heavy dependency with over 90% of vaccines, medicines, and diagnostics being externally sourced—leaving countries vulnerable to global supply chain shocks. Health worker shortages persist, with only 2.3 professionals per 1,000 people (below the WHO’s recommended 4.45), and fewer than 30% of systems are digitized, undermining disease surveillance and early warning. Without decisive action, Africa CDC projects the continent could reverse two decades of health progress, face 2 to 4 million additional preventable deaths annually, and a heightened risk of a pandemic emerging from within. Furthermore, 39 million more Africans could be pushed into poverty by 2030 due to intertwined health and economic shocks. This is not just a sectoral crisis—it is an existential threat to Africa’s political, social, and economic resilience, and global stability. In response, African leaders, under Africa CDC’s stewardship, are advancing a comprehensive three-pillar strategy centered on domestic resource mobilization, innovative financing, and blended finance. more

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Social and Behavior Change Communication SBCC for Malaria in Pregnancy: Strategy Development Guidance

Health Communication Capacity Collaborative HC3; USAID (2017) CC

This Implementation Kit (I-Kit), developed by the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3), which is funded by USAID and based at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, offers structured guidance for improving social and behavioural change communication (SBCC) strategies relat... more

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Compendium of Animal Rabies Prevention and Control, 2016

Brown C.M., Slavinski S., Ettestad P. et al National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians Compendium of Animal Rabies Prevention and Control Committee (2016) C2

Rabies is a fatal viral zoonosis and serious public health problem.1 All mammals are believed to be susceptible to the disease, and for the purposes of this document, use of the term animal refers to mammals. The disease is an acute, progressive encephalitis caused by viruses in the genus Lyssavirus... more

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Influencing food environments for healthy diets

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO (2016) C2

Food environments are usually defined as the settings with all the different types of food made available and accessible to people as they go about their daily lives. That is, the range of food in supermarkets, small retail outlets, wet markets, street food stalls, coffee shops, tea houses, s...chool canteens, restaurants, and all the other venues where people buy and eat food. These environments differ enormously depending on the context. They can be extensive and diverse, with a seemingly endless array of options and price ranges, or they can be sparse, with very few options on offer. Because they determine what food consumers can access at a given moment in time, at what price, and with what degree of convenience, food environments both constrain and prompt the consumer’s choice.Food environments are influenced by the food systems which supply them, and vice versa. Food systems encompass the entire range of activities, people and institutions involved in the production, processing, marketing, consumption and disposal of food (FAO, 2013). They include but are not limited to food supply chains. Making food systems nutrition-sensitive can contribute to addressing all forms of malnutrition, as food systems determine whether the food needed for good nutrition are available, affordable, acceptable and of adequate quantity and quality. How closely food systems and food environments are interrelated and interdependent, and the degree to which external factors affect nutrition outcomes, varies from setting to setting.Many of today’s food systems and food environments are challenged in supporting consumer choices that are consistent with healthy diets and good nutrition. Consumers are not making choices based on nutrition and health, and poor diet is now the number one risk factor for death and disability worldwide (GBD, 2015). Food systems that do not enable healthy diets are increasingly recognized as an underlying cause of malnutrition (GLOPAN, 2016), and malnutrition, irrespective of form, has a huge cost. Economic costs associated with undernutrition are estimated at $1-2 trillion per year, about 2-3% of global GDP (FAO, 2013); the global economic cost of obesity and associated diet-related non-communicable diseases is estimated at $2 trillion per year, about 2.8% of global GDP (McKinsey, 2014). Influencing food environments for promoting healthy diets is an emerging strategy to address today’s nutrition challenges. more

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Lesotho: NON COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

World Health Organization (WHO) (2014) C_WHO

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Pour chaque enfant, une chance de vivre : L’urgence de mettre fin à la mortalité néonatale

UNICEF (2018)

Chaque année, 2,6 millions de bébés meurent avant l’âge d’un mois. Un million d’entre eux rendent leur dernier souffle le jour même de leur naissance. Pourtant, des millions de jeunes vies pourraient être épargnées chaque année si les mères et les bébés avaient accès à des soins ... more

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Defining competent maternal and newborn health professionals

World Health Organization WHO; UNFPA; UNICEF; et al. (2018) C_WHO

Background document to the 2018 joint statement by WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF, ICM, ICN, FIGO and IPA: definition of skilled health personnel providing care during childbirth

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Uganda: Maternal Health

World Health Organization WHO (2017) C_WHO

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HIV Country Profile: 2017 - Mozambique

World Health Organization (WHO) (2017) C_WHO

HIV Country Intelligence - HIV Country Profiles

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Zimbabwe - Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD) Country Profiles

World Health Organization (WHO) (2014) C_WHO

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Swaziland - Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD) Country Profiles

World Health Organization (WHO) (2014) C_WHO

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HIV Country Profile: 2017 - Cambodia

World Health Organization (WHO) (2017) C_WHO

HIV Country Intelligence - HIV Country Profiles

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Three New Estimates of India’s All-Cause Excess Mortality during the COVID-19 Pandemic

A. Anand, J. Sandefur, and A. Subramanian Center for Global Development (2021) CC

Working Paper 589 July 2021T

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Care of Small and Sick Newborns in Special Newborn Care Units (SNCUs) of India: Two year report April 2013 – March 2015

Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India (2017) C2

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the progress made by India in terms of establishment and functionality of Special Newborn Care Units (SNCUs) during the two year period from April 2013 to March 2015. It describes the progress in the operational status (numbers, bed strength, human re... more

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HIV Country Profile: 2017 - Kenya

World Health Organization (WHO) (2017) C_WHO

HIV Country Intelligence - HIV Country Profiles

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Tuberculosis Results Profile Ethiopia 2020

The Global Fund (2020) C1

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Kenya: Countdown to 2015 - Maternal, Newborn & Child Survival

Countdown to 2030 Commission (2015) C2

The Countdown country profile presents in one place the best and latest evidence to enable an assessment of a country’s progress in improving reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH)