First international forum focusing on Africa's health economy launched

Africa Health Forum, the first international forum focusing on the health economy in Africa has been launched by Groupe Jeune Afrique and the African Development Bank, the forum will be held in Geneva, Switzerland on 16 and 17 May 2014.


Members of the Scientific Committee in charge of developing the Africa Health Forum's programme include Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, Assistant Director-General, Health Systems and Innovation at WHO; Dominique Kerouedan, professor at the Collège de France and Sciences Po; Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS; Muhammad Ali Pate, Professor at the Global Health Institute of Duke University in the United States; and Agnès Soucat, Director of the Department of Human Development at the African Development Bank.

"The Africa Health Forum, which takes place just before the General Assembly of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the annual meeting of the 194 Member States' top-ranking health officials, and in the same city, will bring together over 500 African and international participants, all key players in African health: policymakers, representatives of the private sector (laboratories, equipment-makers, managers, investors and financiers) and the main NGOs," Jeune Afrique said in a statement.

The goals of the forum are to strengthen the dialogue between Africa's main public players and provide an occasion for meetings with representatives of the private sector on operational and concrete issues. 

"The programme of plenary and thematic conferences, as well as the participants' working environment, have been designed to speed up development of the health economy in Africa," organizers said. 

"The Africa Health Forum comes at a crucial time for health in Africa. There have been major strides in many areas. The mortality rate of children under five and the maternal mortality rate have fallen by over 40% in 10 years. Since 1997 the number of new HIV/AIDS infections has dropped by over 26% and the malaria mortality rate by 33%. If African countries want to keep up their efforts, they must make up for the reduction of international aid and drastically change their health policies. Some have already done so."

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