President John Dramani Mahama on Saturday called on African leaders, financiers and industrialists to treat health not as a social cost but as a high-yield economic sector capable of driving jobs, manufacturing and macroeconomic stability for 1.4 billion Africans.
Delivering a keynote address on “Investing in Health: Manufacturing and Regional Value Chain” at the Health Plenary of the Alamein Africa Forum, Mahama thanked host President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and said El Alamein — a battlefield 84 years ago — now symbolises transformation.
“For decades, African Finance Ministers and global investors have made a fundamental error: they have treated health as a line-item cost — a social expenditure to be funded only when there is budget left over,” Mahama said. “Today, at the Alamein Africa Forum, we are moving beyond this outdated perspective.”
“Health is not a charitable cause; it is an investable, high-growth economic sector. It drives human capital, manufacturing, job creation, and macroeconomic stability,” the President said on October.
He cited hard economics: “The Copenhagen Consensus shows that a targeted package of basic emergency maternal and newborn care yields $87 in economic and social returns for every single dollar 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.”
The market case:
President Mahama warned that Africa imports over 70% of its pharmaceuticals and nearly 99% of its vaccines, costing tens of billions in foreign exchange annually, while OECD projections show health aid will fall by 29 to 46 percent compared to 2024.
He laid out four pillars for local manufacturing:
1. Captured, Growing Market: Africa’s population will hit 2.5 billion by 2050, with exponential demand for essential medicines and biologics.
2. Import Substitution: Local capacity preserves forex and shields economies from supply shocks.
3. AfCFTA Market Size: “Under the African Continental Free Trade Area, an African pharmaceutical plant does not serve a single country of 10 or 30 million people; it serves a single, unified market of 1.4 billion consumers.”
4. Pooled Procurement: “The Africa CDC recently conducted its first pooled tender for maternal and child health products. By aggregating demand across borders, it achieved price reductions of 30% to 90% while ensuring African manufacturers won 50% of the product lines.”
“To bankers, institutional investors, and industrial leaders, African pharmaceuticals represent a high-yield, resilient sector ready for investment,” he said.
What it means for citizens:
Mahama said local production means health security — “African mothers and children will no longer wait at the end of the global queue for life-saving vaccines or therapies during crises, as seen in COVID-19 and recent Ebola outbreaks.”
It also means jobs. He noted a paradox: “While Africa lacks 6 million health workers, nearly 943,000 trained healthcare professionals and science graduates were unemployed in 2024. Local manufacturing generates jobs in R&D, clinical trials, engineering, and biotech, helping retain talent and employ youth.”
And affordability: “Local production reduces logistics costs, removes intermediary margins, and delivers affordable, high-quality medicines directly to patients across Africa.”
He pointed to Egypt’s elimination of Hepatitis C — from 10% to under 0.5% prevalence — not through $84-per-course imported drugs, but by “negotiated technology transfers, built domestic production through champions like Pharco, treated 4 million citizens locally, and became the first country recognised by WHO on the path to elimination.”
He also cited Nigeria’s African Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE) in Abuja, pioneered by Afreximbank and King’s College Hospital, as a model to stem the $6 billion lost yearly to outbound medical tourism.
On Ghana, he said government is implementing the _Accra Reset_ by expanding the National Health Insurance Scheme, introducing Free Primary Health Care, establishing the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, and empowering the FDA and National Vaccine Institute “to transition Ghana from a consumer to a producer of health products.”
New platform – HINGE:
To eliminate regulatory friction, Mahama unveiled *HINGE, the Health Investment and National Gateway Enabler*, developed with the African Medicines Agency, Institut Pasteur, and AfroChampions.
“HINGE is a digital platform that streamlines regulation, clinical validation, and commercialization into a unified process for innovators and investors,” he said, adding that through the Accra Reset Presidential Council, dedicated Task Forces and a Reform Interlock Observatory will track capital flows and dismantle non-tariff barriers.
Call to private sector:
“Governments cannot and should not fund this transition alone. We need private capital, industrial developers, commercial banks, and sovereign funds to participate,” Mahama said, urging corporate Africa through initiatives like BUMBY (Business United for Mothers, Babies, and Youth) to integrate health into capital allocation.
He closed with three questions:
“To the Financiers: What specific de-risking instruments and blended finance structures do you need from governments to deploy patient capital into African pharmaceutical plants today?
To the Regulators: How quickly can we operationalise the African Medicines Agency to ensure a single drug approval opens the doors to all 54 AU member states?
To the Industrialists: What strategic partnerships do we need to move from basic packaging and fill-and-finish operations to full Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) synthesis on African soil?”
“Let us stop treating health as a line-item expense. Let us build factories, integrate supply chains, fund innovators, and secure our citizens’ future,” he concluded.
READ FULL STATEMENT- Alamein Health Keynote address
