Africa Project Briefs

Africa Leadership Meeting Platform Strengthening & Expansion

The Africa Leadership Meeting Platform Strengthening and Expansion project began in 2018 and covers the African Union, Ethiopia, and Rwanda. The key objectives of the project are:

  • Strengthen platforms and partners to protect, increase, and better allocate resources for public health, and
  • Increase the capacity of governments and partners to manage processes to effectuate health finance reforms
  • Build upon existing investments, including support for Georgetown to facilitate the Africa Leadership Meeting.

The key achievements to date include:

  • Successful implementation of the African Leadership Meeting for Health Financing (ALM) at the African Union in 2019
  • Continued support and refinement on a health financing tracker for the continent of Africa to consolidate information, identify areas of success, and improvement, and allow for more targeted future intervention
  • Coordination of connections at the African Union, the office of the Presidency of Rwanda, the Global Fund, and others
  • Development of connections at ‘Regional Hub’ locations as focal points for activity, collaboration, and advocacy in place in five regions

African Union COVID-19 Response

The African Union COVID-19 response project started in 2020. Its key objectives are:

  • Enhance political leadership for a COVID 19 response
  • Report and publish the 2020 AU Leadership for COVID-19 and Health Report
  • Issue high-level advocacy strategies regarding African positions (research, briefing papers and policy briefs, and webinars)
  • Provide support to the ACT-A Co-chairing Initiative
  • Establish a Health Leadership Initiative Project to Implement the LHI

Key project achievements to date include:

  • The African Union Assembly, held 6-7 February 2021, appointed President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa as African Union Champion to continue leading the COVID Response throughout the continent
  • Coordinators were placed at the Secretariat in the office of the presidency, and in the AU CDC in South Africa for a collaborative response
  • A concrete COVID response plan was created, proposed, and approved at the AU 2022 meeting in February proposing next steps. with guidance from the president’s office in South Africa and in collaboration with the AU CDC