World Bank and African Union Launch $bn Push to Build Africa’s Pharma Sector
Africa has formally launched the Africa Initiative for Medical Access and Manufacturing, AIM2030, a multi-stakeholder programme designed to fundamentally restructure the continent’s dependence on imported medicines, vaccines, and medical supplies.
The initiative was unveiled at a ceremony in Nairobi attended by Kenyan President William Ruto, IFC Managing Director Makhtar Diop, WHO AFRO Regional Director Dr Mohamed Yakub Janabi, and Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Health, Aden Duale.
The initiative confronts a stark structural reality: African countries currently import between 70 and 100 percent of finished pharmaceutical products, and approximately 99 percent of vaccines used on the continent are produced outside it. Less than one percent of vaccines administered in Africa originate from local manufacturers.
That dependency crystallised as a systemic risk during the COVID-19 pandemic, when global supply disruptions, export restrictions, and price volatility left health systems across the continent exposed. AIM2030 frames local manufacturing not merely as an industrial goal, but as a health security imperative.
“Resilience cannot be imported in the middle of a crisis. It must be built in advance,” said Makhtar Diop, IFC Managing Director
AIM2030 will concentrate investment and technical support across nine priority markets: Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, and South Africa. The initiative’s headline target is doubling local production of key health products by 2030, aligned with the World Bank Group’s broader goal of delivering affordable, quality health services to 1.5 billion additional people globally within the same timeframe.
Spearheaded by the World Bank Group and the African Union Commission, the programme also draws in the Africa CDC and the nascent Africa Medicines Agency as regional partners. Its design specifically targets persistent bottlenecks in the sector: limited manufacturing scale, fragmented markets, weak regulatory capacity, and underdeveloped regional trade and pooled procurement mechanisms.
Beyond health outcomes, AIM2030 is being positioned as an economic development vehicle. Organisers say the initiative will mobilise private capital to drive industrialisation, deepen health value chains, and generate skilled employment across the continent.
“At its core, AIM2030 is about supporting Africa’s ambition to double pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity by 2030 through stronger regional manufacturing and supply chains,” said Diop.
The initiative will bring together governments, development finance institutions, private investors, and industry partners to mobilise capital, boost innovation, and facilitate south-south knowledge exchange on medicines, vaccines, and other medical products.
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