Category: Stories from Africa Seminar Series

Blog by Ekene Osakwe, Ipchita Bharali, and Dr. Megan HuchkoThis blog summarizes the discussion and key takeaways from the webinar that was hosted on April 22, 2022 as part of the Asia-Africa Health Initiative Seminar series. Click here to view the live recording of the seminar. BackgroundNo woman should die from childbirth. Although global trends in maternal mortality from 2000 to 2017 show a 38% reduction in the maternal mortality ratio (MMR), the agenda to eliminate preventable deaths in mothers and children on the African and Asian continents is still unfinished. Low- and middle-income countries contribute 99% of global maternal deaths for women aged 15-49 years. Maternal mortality has remained unacceptably high with 297 000 deaths occurring in 2017 alone. Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia contributed 86% of the global maternal…

This blog was first published in Brookings Future Development Blog and is part of an ongoing series of blogs based on the Stories from Africa Seminar Series that concluded in November 2018 at Duke University. Two of the authors, Siddharth Dixit and Chinmoy Kumar, along with Indermit Gill, have authored a related recent paper "Are Economic Relations with India Helping Africa?" available for download here. African countries face numerous challenges in health services, from severe shortages of health care professionals to weak leadership and governance to limited infrastructure and resources to self-imposed policy barriers. In recent years, trade in the health sector has provided some solutions, such as eHealth (the use of information and communication technologies for health) and mHealth (the use of mobile devices for health). But there is still a long way to go…

This blog was first published in Brookings Future Development Blog and is part of an ongoing series of blogs based on the Stories from Africa Seminar Series that concluded in November 2018 at Duke University. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) health targets are extremely ambitious. They call for ending the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases, and preventable deaths of newborns and children below 5 years of age by 2030. Achieving these targets will require large sums of money. Karin Stenberg and colleagues estimate that among 67 low-income countries (LICs) and middle-income countries (MICs)—representing 95 percent of the population of all LICs and MICs—the annual financing gap to reach the SDG health targets is more than $370 billion. About half of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, where the…

This blog was first published in Brookings Future Development Blog and is part of an ongoing series of blogs based on the Stories from Africa Seminar Series that concluded in November 2018 at Duke University. Health leaders and policymakers around the world have a shared interest and commitment to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030. Health systems are responding to increased demand due to population growth, aging populations with complex conditions, or prior commitments to achieve UHC. Despite health gains in the last 20 years, problems are particularly acute in Sub-Saharan Africa. As economies grow to middle-income levels, they have to tackle communicable diseases while more people are living with non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension. The burden of disease may be higher in low-income economies, but the complexity of…