Lunch Session: Access to Medicines in Africa (Invitation only)

As a follow-up to the World Investment Forum 2014 session on investment in sustainable and universal access to medicines, this event will highlight political commitments and concrete business opportunities for expanding local production of pharmaceutical products in Africa and beyond, in order to promote access to medicines and related health commodities, particularly for scaling up access to HIV and TB testing and treatment. The event thereby seeks to support the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 3, SDG 9 and SDG 17.

Issues to be addressed

In order to improve the continent’s health security, African leaders have in recent years demonstrated important political commitment to support the local production of pharmaceutical products. One of the biggest challenges currently faced by African local pharmaceutical producers is how to meet requirements related to the quality, safety and efficacy of medicines and good manufacturing practices (GMP). This requires investment in quality upgrading. Access to credit is thus essential but domestic commercial banks are often hesitant to engage in long-term projects. Foreign investment and government support therefore play a major role in the promotion of local production of quality medicines and the transfer of GMP-related technologies and know-how. This event seeks to address the following issues:

• The role of a coherent policy framework on health, trade, investment and intellectual property to attract foreign investors and promote domestic pharmaceutical production capacity
• The identification of concrete business opportunities between local producers and potential investors