HEALTH SOVEREIGNTY: DIRECTIONS TO SELF-RELIANCE

Dr Jean Kaseya, Director General of the Africa CDC, points to the urgency behind building systems that can prevent, detect, and respond. For him the G20 platform “was a pivotal opportunity for the entire African continent to present a unified agenda rooted in its own vision for health sovereignty and security.” Kaseya emphasized how between 2022 and 2024, Africa saw a 41% surge in epidemic events. “These figures are not just numbers. They are a call to action,” he states and adds: “We leveraged the G20 platform to advocate for genuine global support. This is not charity. It is a partnership that empowers Africa to build a resilient, self-reliant health system capable of protecting its own populations and contributing to global health security.”

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Nonetheless, policy intent must be translated into industrial capability. Professor Nicholas Crisp, Deputy Director-General at the National Department of Health, sets out the operating logic. “Our focus at G20 was to assert Africa’s place. We want to stop being perpetual aid recipients. We aim to establish a domestic pharmaceutical market, collaborate on API production, and ensure regulators are taken seriously. For that, we need harmonized standards and regional collaboration. South Africa’s market alone, 63 million, is too small. We need all one billion Africans to work together.”

To make South Africa’s path towards a more sovereign system, financing models also evolve.