40+
Speakers
200+
Organizations
200+
Delegates
30+
Countries
The Africa Health Business Symposium (AHBS), curated by Africa Health Business (AHB), is a Pan-African conference that sits at the heart of the African healthcare scene. Over the last four years AHBS has emerged as Africa’s largest health business event. This year, AHBS brought together some of the most influential public and business leaders and key stakeholders in the development sector for a series of webinars themed “Partnerships for resilient health systems”. As Africa adapts to a new normal, partnerships in over-stretched health systems will continue to play an important role. The AHBS webinar series will consist of five sessions in October and November discussing key areas that are at the centre of change :
Who attended the 2nd webinar series?
Private Sector
Governments
Development Partners
Investors
Thought Leaders
Academia
The AHBS 1st webinar series, organised by Africa Health Business (AHB) took place on the 17th of July – 14th of August 2020. This first series under the theme partnerships for COVID-19 in Africa covered the themes of Digital health, Manufacturing and supply chain, Testing, treating and tracking, Infrastructure and equipment and Financing models.
The series was well attend with participants logging in from the African continent, Europe, Asia, America and the Middle East.
2nd Webinar Series Reports
Digital Health
29th October 2020
Hila Azadzoy
Managing Director, Global Health Initiative, Ada Health
Melissa Menke
Founder and CEO, Access Afya
Didier Nkurikiyimfura
Director of Technology & Innovation at the Smart Africa Secretariat
Paul Bhuhi
Group Board Advisor, BroadReach
Robin Njiru
Business Lead-East Africa, Amazon Web Services
Ada Mwangola
Director Social & Political Pillars, Kenya Vision 2030
"There are so many great technologies out there. We can have the best technology, but if we’re not collaborating, especially with the public health sector where the majority of people in low- and middle-income countries are accessing care, these solutions and the potential impact will not be able to scale.."
Hila Azadzoy
Managing Director, Global Health Initiative, Ada Health
"We are keen as an organisation to support, partner with, and develop startups. Especially in the context of Africa we see a lot of niche SMEs and addressing local issues but with the inability to scale, so AWS is keen to form partnerships in the healthcare space to help with this.."
Robin Njiru
Business Lead-East Africa, Amazon Web Services
Healthcare financing
5th November 2020
Kwasi Boahene
Director for Advocacy & West Africa, PharmAccess
Audrey Obara
Head of Healthcare Investments, Swedfund International AB
Shakir Merali
Partner LGT Lightstone
Amit N. Thakker
Executive Chairman, Africa Health Business
"As Swedfund, we want to provide investment in healthcare companies that are providing quality care. We use PharmAccess’s SafeCare program to assess the quality of care as well as to help us know how to support organisations through technical support, among other avenues."
Audrey Obara
Head of Healthcare Investments, Swedfund International AB
"At PharmAccess, the aim is to build health systems in such a way that people will have access to care, not only for today, but for the long-term. For that reason, we have an integrated approach where we work on the financing of care.."
Kwasi Boahene
Director for Advocacy & West Africa, PharmAccess
"What is becoming evident and what we’re looking to fund is the availability of the right kind of healthcare solutions that are Africanised, that deal with African problems and are not prescribed from abroad or are ivory tower based solutions..."
Shakir Merali
Partner, LGT Lightstone
Manufacturing & Supply Chain
12th November 2020
Yasmin Chandani
inSupply Health, CEO
Harald Nusser
Global Health expert
Stavros Nicolaou
Group Senior Executive Strategic Trade, Aspen
Ahmed Ogwell Ouma
Deputy Director, Africa CDC
Chidinma Ifepe
Head of Buyer Management, Africa Medical Supplies Platform
Amit N. Thakker
Executive Chairman, Africa Health Business
"There is a great opportunity for manufacturers on the continent. We have great potential. The health market is over $250 billion, but local manufacturing is still extremely small. For drugs alone, we import something in the range of 90 to 95% of what we need. For equipment, it is even higher than that (in the 98% range), meaning that the opportunity for African manufacturers to step into this space is significant.."
Dr. E. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma
Deputy Director, Africa CDC
"Today, Africa has a population of about 1.3 billion, but tomorrow there's an estimate that it's going to be around 2.4 billion. The structures we have today are not enough to scale for our population size of tomorrow. ."
Chidinma Ifepe
Head of Buyer Management, Africa Medical Supplies Platform
"When it comes to partnership with private sector organisations, it is important for both sides and co-creators to have the situational analysis done before public- private partnership is even manifested in a memorandum of understanding. We have often learned this the hard way..."
Herald Nasser
Global Health Expert
Managing the disease burden
19th November 2020
Steven Baard
Corporate Strategy and M&A, Ottobock
Maria Sol Pintos Castro
Senior Manager Private Sector Engagement Department, Global Fund
Iain Barton
CEO, CHAI
Dai Hozumi
Chief Technical Officer, IntraHealth
Philana Mugyenyi
Manager SSA - Government Affairs & Public Policy, Terumo BCT
Vinay Ransiwal
General Manager and Vice President
Arpit Bansal
Country Director Sub Saharan Africa, AstraZeneca
Ademola Olajide
Representative Kenya, UNFPA
"Preventing future pandemics is about the way forward, how we are going to address global health security and is linked directly to health systems..."
Maria Sol Pintos Castro
Senior Manager Private Sector Engagement Department, The Global Fund
"Partnerships and collaboration are key to helping manage the disease burden, which is being directly and indirectly affected by lack of blood in Africa. ."
Philana Mugyenyi
Manager SSA - Government Affairs & Public Policy, Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies
"Going forward, there is no doubt that the private sector has a critical role to play. We must find a way to rapidly scale up capacity on the continent to work with the private sector. The public sector on the African continent is yet to have the full capacity required to optimise the benefit that the private sector provides...."
Dr. Ademola Olajide
Country Representative, Kenya, UNFPA
Human resources for health
26th November 2020
Kate Tulenko
Corvus Health, Founder
Ghazi Darghouth
President, Tunisia Health Alliance
Elizabeth Wala
Global Advisor, Health and Nutrition, Aga Khan Foundation
Frank Loeffler
General Manager, Roche East Africa
Polly Dunford
President and CEO, IntraHealth
Marjorie Mbule
Senior Programme Lead, Mothers2Mothers
Nyawira Njeru
Global Health Director - Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa, BD
"
Technology and innovation can help us save resources in the healthcare sector. For example, there are virtual ways of connecting healthcare professionals. We have technologies that carry out digital pathology, which means the pathologist, looking at a certain result, could sit in any place in the world...."
Frank Loeffler
General Manager East Africa Roche
"What we often see is that the public sector trains enough workers to meet its needs but then they often get hired by the private sector, leaving government facilities short-staffed...."
Dr. Kate Tulenko
Founder, Corvus Health
"Mentorship is also extremely important. What if we pair student health workers with private sector mentors while they're still in training so that they can see from the very beginning the possibilities included in health worker career? They should know that they can work in the public sector or private sector, and learn these private sector approaches, which are important no matter where they end up working...."
Polly Dunford
President & CEO, IntraHealth
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