Abstract: Africa is taking charge of its public health agenda. Aligned with the African Union's "Agenda 2063: The Africa we want", the New Public Health Order being championed by the Africa CDC aims at pursuing a public health agenda that sustainably strengthens the capacity of national, regional and continental health systems that truly improve population health and other development outcomes.
Established as a specialized technical agency of the African Union, the Africa CDC is working with Member States to build and strengthen national public health institutes to lead efforts at integrating science and data with national health policies, as well as enable countries to better prepare for public health emergencies.
Health economics as a discipline has a crucial role to play in providing needed evidence to support decisions on resource allocation broadly, particularly in resource-poor settings such as Africa. However, with the exception of a few countries on the continent, health economics tools and evidence have not been leveraged to support health priority setting, among other important decisions.
With the establishment of the Africa CDC Health Economics Programme (HEP), the continent has made a bold decision to systematically embed health economics evidence at the highest levels of decision-making on the continent, while providing guidance and support to Member States to do same.
What are the implications of this move by the Africa CDC on health economics research and capacity, and what roles exist for academic and research institutions within and outside of the continent that focus much of their work on improving health sector policies and practices in Africa? The aim of this presentation is to highlight and discuss these questions, and engage the audience in exploring how the discipline of health economics could contribute to an effective public health agenda for the continent.