A New Vision for Health Financing in Africa - SDG Media Zone, 80th Session of the UN General Assembly

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the SDG Media Zone. We are live from New York during the UN 80th session. I'm going to hand it over to our next moderator, Bernard Akede from Nigeria, News Central tv. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Good morning everyone. I'm still trying to adjust the difference in time zone so please forgive me. My name is Bernard Akede. I work with News Central Television, head of reportorial and lead correspondent.

New Central is a Pan African TV station that pushes the African narrative positively trying to bring Africa to the world and the rest of the world to Africa. Thank you so much. Once again I'm here with Indidi.

I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you so much indeed. CEO One Campaign. All right, I'll just jump straight to it now.

Indeed we're looking at health care and well, Africa, Africa's health basically excuse me. Africa's health security is at a turning point at the moment and donor funding is declining just as population grows and demand for health care continues to rise. With half of Sub Saharan countries reliant on external support, ONE is advancing a vision for sustainable Africa led financing governments leading for Africans health as a drive of growth and an ecosystem approach that makes basic care right for all sadly yet persistent data gaps undermine decisions and accountability. Now to help close this gap, One Data has launched the One Data agent which is an all powered, sorry an AI powered platform delivering fast care data on health financing. If you've been for those of us who've been following the conversation here, there's been a lot of talk about AI and how best, particularly developing countries can take advantage of AI.

So I'll jump straight into it. And first of all, you know, donor funding for health in Africa is failing even as population grows and demand for care continues to rise. So how do you think or how do you see this shaping Africa's health security over the next decade? And what really risks does this pose and what do you think needs to change?

Basically, thank you so much for having me.

The One Campaign is a global advocacy organization that fights for the investments to ensure healthier lives and economic opportunity in Africa. And our vision is that Africa is an equal player. We've known for a long time that the cuts were coming. One released some results last year from our data team that showed that ODA was at a 50 year low and health spending was at a 14 year low. When you take out the COVID numbers.

But the way that we've experienced the cuts in the first few months of this year have been quite alarming. But another wake UP call for the African continent and for many other world regions. At one, we will continue to fight for life saving medicines and humanitarian support. And we're not letting countries off the hook on their commitment to humanitarian support and global solidarity. However, we recognize that that there has to be a pathway to sustainably financing health in Africa.

Our vision is that by 2035, no African country should be dependent on any other world region to fund its own health care. And we believe that is possible by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the health spending in our countries using technology, innovation, transparency and accountability, by leveraging domestic resource mobilization and growing our economies by addressing debts so that African countries do not have to choose between between paying for their health care workers salaries and repaying expensive debt that was negotiated very poorly and where Africa continues to pay a premium for debt relative to other world regions, which is unacceptable. And we've taken on the cost of capital as a key campaign issue for the G20 by unlocking Diaspora funding not just for health, but also for health insurance. And we've just developed a very ambitious mechanism for diaspora partnering on health insurance for our continent by transforming the global health infrastructure to ensure that we transfer data and ownership to African countries. And also by driving new investments in domestic health spend, leveraging Africa's youth as a health workforce for the future.

These very ambitious pathways are already being implemented in Senegal and Sierra Leone in partnership with the government. We need political will at the highest levels, a commitment to leaving no one behind, a commitment to developing interventions that are Africa led and Africa owned, not copying interventions from other regions, and a commitment to partnering with civil society, the private sector and government. So I'm excited about the momentum that's being generated at this time and an Africa led advocacy agenda for health financing in our continent.

That's fantastic. Now, you talked about relating with some governments in certain African countries and I'm African and I know that sometimes it could be challenging relating with governments.

What has the experience been in some of these countries? And have you had any pushbacks or challenges with any of these governments? And if so, how have you been able to handle that?

The amazing thing is that the recognition that no one else is coming to save our continent has actually put governments on alert. And we're seeing a lot more political will on the continent with governments coming together not only with the recent Accra declaration led by President Mohammad, but also President Kagame, partnering with Africa, CDC and many other stakeholders to drive or widespread commitment to fill the gaps in Sierra Leone and Senegal, the two countries where we're Piloting the future of health financing.

We've also seen tremendous political will. These are two countries that are burdened by debt and they recognize that they have to take ownership of addressing the key health challenges in their countries. I'm very impressed with Sierra Leone's commitment to addressing maternal mortality and infant mortality, leveraging innovation and technology and AI tracking women, following them through the birthing process. And that is directly related to their commitment to achieving the SDGs. It's not easy, but partnering with key stakeholders, civil society and the private sector, we're starting to see momentum at the highest level.

It definitely is not easy. And if we had a larger crowd, I would ask for a round of applause for the Sierra Leonean first lady, who actually is pushing for a lot. I'll just chip in here that the Sierra Leonean first Lady has pushed for a law where child marriage has completely been banned and people have been arrested and jailed if they are found engaging in child marriage. She's also pushing for a lot to do with health care, as a matter of fact, and she's a woman. So I think if Sierra Leone can do it, every other African country can do it as well.

Still going further. Thank you so much. Thank you. Now, you often frame health not just as social good, but as an economic driver. Why should government treat investment in health as critical to growth?

And how is one pushing for sustainable health? Africa led financing?

The amazing thing is that oftentimes we see health as a development indicator, but a healthy workforce is a driver for growth. But the health economy is also a good source of income. We want to see more African countries manufacturing their own vaccines, their own medicines.

This has already started with the Africa Vaccine Manufacturers Accelerator in partnership with Africa, CDC and gavi. We want to see African countries providing the health workforce for the future. And we're still seeing this with Germany PA paying Kenya for each health care worker that is trained in Kenya, but services Germany. And as Europe's population declines, Africa can and must provide the health care workers for the future and be compensated for training this healthcare workforce. I always joke with my friends in the UK that the day that Africans decide they are not coming to work, NHS would shut down.

And we see that in cities all over the world where we see healthcare workers, nurses, doctors and even the entry level of just the cleaners in the hospitals or the elderly care workers. Being from the African continent and it is high time we recognize that they are part of our diaspora, they are a source of income and they can be short term or long term, temporary workers or long term workers and that it's a benefit. So leveraging technology, we're going to be partnering with many governments to, to benefit from the opportunities that our demographic dividend provides. There's also a tremendous opportunity for us to leverage innovation technology to teach the rest of the world how to care for patients. And we're seeing so many innovations on the ground where we are leapfrogging in health provision and health tech.

And I think that is a source of income and a source of revenue. So there is a full spectrum of opportunities that are available to us and this is one area where we can excel as a continent.

Very true. Now, if truly this is a turning point, what's the one action that you'd like to see African leaders, donors and citizens each take to tip the balance towards sustainable health security?

I've mentioned political will, but also transparency and accountability.

And that's why I'm really excited about the tool that we launched yesterday called the One Data Agent. It's a health financing tool because at the crux of transformation is data. Data that is relevant, data that is rooted in integrity and transparency and data that is tailored to our ecosystem. Data coming from Africa for the world. For too long we've relied on data from WHO and others that are 2 years old, often too late, when we see this data to act.

And the One Data Agent is a free tool that we hope will not only inform data driven policymaking, but also empower citizens to hold their governments accountable today deliver for them. With this type of data which is available, you can see how much Malawi spends on polio eradication. By just typing it in, you can see how much German funding goes to support HIV AIDS. You can question how the G7 countries are delivering for Africa and with Africa. And that type of data not only informs our work on the continent, but also enables us to partner more effectively with the partners who are really committed to solidarity and fighting alongside Africa for healthier lives.

All right, thank you. And of course, you definitely just hammered on data. I'd like to ask, persistent data gaps continue to undermine decisions and accountability. So where do these gaps show up most, strike most starkly? And what's the cost of not closing up these gaps?

Well, it starts with the fact that in many of our countries, we still don't have comprehensive databases on birth rates, death rates. We don't have data that follows our children from birth all the way to their contributions as productive citizens. And this is critical because not only does it allow us to track health spending, but also allows us to see gaps across our regions and enable us to fill those gaps instantly. We desperately need credible sources of data coming from our communities. National data, regional data, and then obviously continental data.

I often say, and this links to our cost of capital work, that the bias against our continent is linked to ignorance. And there's so much ignorance on the part of the rest of the world when it interfaces with Africa, but also within our continent. How we show up is important and that data helps to inform the return on investment of partnership with Africa. And so we need data at all levels and to ensure that we can deliver for Africans, especially the most vulnerable, and to ensure that no one is left behind. And one, through its one data work is changing that and putting it in the hands of every single person who cares deeply about data driven policymaking, about shifting resources from where they're needed, where there is an excess to where they're needed the most, or following the money to ensure that it actually drives impacts on the ground and delivering results for people at the bottom of the pyramid.

I totally agree. And a certain wise man said, men lie, women lie, but data never lies. His name is Jay Z, by the way. Truly, truly, numbers never lie. And just before we, before we wrap this up, I'd like to say and ask something.

Now, you mentioned earlier that if the African health workers in the UK down tools, the NHS would suffer. Well, it only means that you have a huge number of African workers in the health care sector across the globe, but it also means that they are coming from somewhere and it means that Africa is losing health care workers. So what can we do? Basically in say, one, two minutes, what do you think can be done to help the healthcare system in Africa such that the workers are interested in staying back and developing the health care system over there too?

I'm convinced that we actually should not only train more healthcare workers because we have quite a few unemployed youth leveraging innovation and technology so that we're providing a health care workforce for the world.

Because just like we've seen many countries leverage innovation and technology to leapfrog, we can do that in the health ecosystem as well. Having diaspora leading in health is a good thing, but we just need to train more. And the more we elevate our health system and can pay competitive salaries, people want to stay home. What we're also seeing is diaspora coming back to help develop the health economy. And I'm just so proud of the Nigerian doctors who have set up clinics in Nigeria, who have set up cancer care centers in Nigeria, and they spend half their year in the United States.

And half their year in Nigeria. That is impact at the highest levels and when you see that happening it just shows you that people ultimately want to be at home serving their people but they need the opportunities globally and that's why there's fluidity in how data can be leveraged today using technology. You can actually in fact recently a surgery was done, a remote surgery was done. We don't have to have doctors necessarily in villages if we have innovation technology, solar powered hospitals to serve them and we can train our primary health care workers to leapfrog. So I'm excited about leveraging this new development to ensure that we produce workforce for the world that we have doctors and nurses in our countries but we also have African doctors and nurses serving the world.

Thank you so much. Indeed I think that's a great way to call it today. Thank you so much and thank you ladies and gentlemen for watching and for listening. Thank you.