African trade and healthcare leaders have called for accelerated investment in local pharmaceutical manufacturing at the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, targeting a continent that spent more than $20 billion on drug imports in 2019 alone.
The discussions, held under the African Initiative for Medical Access and Manufacturing (AIM2030), were attended by African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretary-General Wamkele Mene and centred on reducing import dependence while strengthening healthcare resilience across the continent.
Participants identified three priority areas: developing Africa’s medical industries, achieving universal health coverage and improving the resilience of healthcare delivery systems across African markets.
Mene argued that the AfCFTA framework, established in part to address structural weaknesses in Africa’s industrial base, could support competitive pharmaceutical value chains through trade instruments including rules of origin, market integration measures and intellectual property provisions. He also connected the industrialisation agenda to broader health priorities being advanced by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the African Medicines Agency.
A strong consensus emerged around the need for predictable and sustainable demand signals to unlock long-term private investment in pharmaceutical production. Industry and policy leaders warned that without clear demand visibility, investors will remain reluctant to scale manufacturing capacity across African markets.
Regulatory uncertainty, high energy and financing costs, tax burdens and weak demand clarity were identified as the main structural barriers constraining sector investment.
The discussions carry particular urgency in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed the continent’s vulnerability to external supply disruptions that cut off access to medicines and vaccines when they were needed most.
With a population exceeding 1.4 billion people, Africa represents a substantial long-term opportunity for pharmaceutical manufacturing and medical innovation. Participants said reducing import dependence could generate meaningful public health gains alongside broader economic returns through job creation, technology transfer and expanded intra-African trade.
