The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted Africa’s vulnerability in accessing lifesaving medical products and exposed critical gaps across its health research and development (R&D) landscape—from limited manufacturing capacity and underdeveloped clinical trials infrastructure to fragmented regulatory frameworks.
In response, the African Union set a bold target to locally produce 60 percent of the continent’s vaccines by 2040. It launched initiatives such as the Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing and the African Union Roadmap to 2030 & Beyond to strengthen health systems and accelerate innovation.
Building on this momentum, numerous governments, development partners, industry players, and multilateral institutions have pledged support to Africa’s health R&D ecosystem. However, tracking the scale, focus, and progress of these commitments remains a challenge.
To address this critical gap in transparency, PATH developed the Africa Health R&D Commitments Tracker, a centralized platform for consolidating data on commitments, specifically targeting manufacturing, clinical trials, and regulatory system strengthening in Africa. By fostering greater visibility into these crucial areas, the tracker provides a means for advocates, policymakers, and implementers to call for accountability, identify trends, and influence policies that drive Africa’s self-sufficiency in health innovation.
The Africa Health R&D Commitments Tracker captures financial, in-kind, and political pledges from governments, donors, industry, and other partners. Since 2020, PATH has recorded 55 commitments totaling $4.02 billion. The vast majority—$3.76 billion (80.7 percent)—has been allocated to manufacturing, while clinical trials have received only 1.75 percent ($7 million) of total commitments.
While the tracker highlights progress, it also reveals critical funding imbalances that must be addressed to create a more robust and equitable R&D ecosystem in Africa.
Where investment is flowing—and where it’s not
Africa’s urgent push for increased access to health innovations has brought critical attention to three foundational pillars: manufacturing of vaccines and diagnostics, clinical trials strengthening, and regulatory system strengthening.
While efforts have gained momentum, spurred by the continent’s vulnerability during global supply chain disruptions, significant gaps remain.
Manufacturing vaccines and diagnostics
Vaccines manufacturing
In the wake of the pandemic, Africa prioritized vaccine manufacturing, focusing on fill-and-finish production—the final steps in vaccine formulation and packaging. While this was a necessary first step, the resulting manufacturing landscape is heavily skewed toward downstream capacity, with limited upstream capabilities, such as antigen production, which are essential for true self-reliance.
However, the drive to manufacture vaccines locally has been met with both ambitious plans and sobering setbacks. For instance, while there have been positive advances like Gavi’s launch of the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, which aims to bolster long-term financing, there have been setbacks—such as Moderna’s withdrawal from the planned Kenyan facility—which highlight the fragility of progress in the absence of sustained commitments and clear demand signals. Without firm, long-term commitments, Africa risks remaining dependent on external suppliers during future health crises.
To build a resilient vaccine manufacturing ecosystem, support must go beyond individual facilities to reinforce the broader system: regulatory harmonization, workforce development, and shared infrastructure. Fragmented efforts risk undermining Africa’s pandemic preparedness; coordinated, long-term investment is the only path to true health sovereignty.
Diagnostics manufacturing
Despite the essential role of diagnostics in disease detection, treatment, and outbreak response, diagnostics manufacturing continues to receive limited attention and investment in Africa. For example, during the mpox outbreak, only eight countries in Africa had national-level diagnostic capacity, highlighting the continent’s limited readiness to detect and respond to emerging threats.
Closing this gap requires more than funding, it demands stronger policies, regulatory alignment, and targeted investment in technical expertise and infrastructure for large-scale production. Prioritizing diagnostics R&D alongside vaccines and therapeutics is essential to building a balanced and resilient health ecosystem capable of responding to future health emergencies.
Technology transfer
Technology transfer—transferring intellectual property created by research institutions to companies for manufacturing products—plays a vital role in health R&D. It transforms scientific discoveries into accessible solutions like vaccines and diagnostics, while enabling local manufacturing that improves access and equity. By sharing know-how and building capacity, it strengthens innovation ecosystems, speeds product delivery, and ensures public research investments translate into real-world impact.
Notable partnerships, such as those between international agencies and African pharmaceutical companies to produce key treatment ingredients, represent steps in the right direction.
However, technology transfer remains underfunded.
End-to-end manufacturing
Only 8 percent of commitments in the Africa Health R&D Commitments Tracker focus on end-to-end manufacturing, leaving critical gaps in regional and local pharmaceutical production. This imbalance highlights the need for smarter, more strategic investments that strengthen the entire vaccine value chain.
Investing in local manufacturing has far-reaching benefits. It reduces costs, enhances access to essential medicines, and builds Africa’s capacity to develop its treatments.
For example, strengthening pharmaceutical production will enable Africa to address emerging health threats like mpox. A shift from fill-and-finish operations to full-scale production will improve supply chain resilience, create jobs, drive medical innovation, and position Africa as a leader in global health solutions.
PATH advances policy advocacy that ensures access to high-quality, safe, and effective medical products, as a way of contributing to universal health coverage, and strengthening Africa’s health preparedness, response, and recovery plans. Photo: PATH.
Clinical trials
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the urgent need for African-led clinical research and trials to ensure timely access to lifesaving treatments. Yet despite Africa’s high disease burden, the continent receives only a fraction of global research funding. This gap leaves Africa dependent on external solutions that are not always tailored to its specific health challenges.
Of the $2.76 billion in commitments tracked to date, only $7 million—just 1.75 percent—has been directed to clinical research. As a result, Africa accounts for only 2 percent of global clinical trials. This underinvestment limits the continent’s ability to develop targeted treatments and hinders progress in tackling both endemic and emerging health threats.
The Africa CDC Consortium for COVID-19 Vaccine Clinical Trials demonstrated the potential of coordinated efforts, but sustained funding is essential to building a self-sufficient and resilient clinical research ecosystem. Governments, donors, and private-sector partners must urgently scale up investments in clinical research and trials.
Regulatory harmonization
One of the challenges to achieving health autonomy in Africa lies in its diverse regulatory frameworks. Treatment approved in one country can take years to gain clearance in another. This slows response times and can lead to delays in the approval and distribution of essential medicines.
The African Medicines Agency and the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation initiative provide a framework for regulatory alignment, aiming to streamline approval processes across the continent. Additionally, a $6.63 million grant to the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa for pharmaceutical regulation represents a step forward.
Still, much more investment is needed to accelerate approval timelines and ensure consistent quality standards across African nations.
A vision for a healthier, self-sufficient Africa
While Africa has made progress in vaccine manufacturing, clinical research, and regulatory harmonization, considerable gaps remain. Achieving true self-sufficiency will require long-term, sustained investments in end-to-end manufacturing, clinical trial infrastructure, and regulatory alignment. By addressing these challenges, Africa can build a resilient health ecosystem that ensures equitable access to medical solutions, fosters innovation, and secures a healthier future.
To realize this vision, African governments, regional bodies, donors, and the private sector must take bold steps to finance and implement sustainable R&D and manufacturing solutions.
PATH will continue to track new commitments and advancements made to fulfill existing ones, as information becomes available. However, transparency continues to be a challenge. We invite you to visit our Africa Health R&D Commitments Tracker and submit information you or your organization may have on progress achieved or any commitments we may have missed.
