Abstract
Diseases like malaria, AIDS, and cholera among many others kill more people in Africa than anywhere. Acutely aware of the disease burden of the continent, the African Union has designed numerous policies and strategies to enhance intra-African cooperation and partnerships to fight disease and protect the health of the population at the highest levels of decision-making on the continent. Some of them include the AIDS Watch Africa (AWA), a statutory organ of the AU, with representation at the level of heads of state and governments, set up for advocacy, accountability, and resource mobilisation to build a strong African response to HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Others are the newly created Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC), Africa Medicine Agency (AMA), and Specialised Technical Committees.
This chapter also examines Africa’s multilateral health diplomacy notably within the UN system. The UN has been a crucial partner to Africa in the continent’s struggles against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The General Assembly Declaration of Commitment to doubling up the fight against the pandemic adopted at its twenty-sixth special session (UNGA, Declaration of commitment on HIV/AIDS. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly, 62nd Special session, Agenda 7 (A/RES/S-26/2. https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N01/434/84/PDF/N0143484.pdf?OpenElement, 2001) attests to that. It also examines the role of the WTO-TRIPS flexibilities in generic drug production that has increased the number of people on antiretroviral drugs, and thus reduced mortality from AIDS-related diseases in Africa. The chapter rounds up with an examination of the main challenges to health diplomacy in Africa, the most important of which are external resource dependency, and frequent conflict.
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Ndi, H.N., Bang, H.N., Kengo, E.E. (2023). Diseases, Epidemics, and Diplomacy in Africa. In: Ndi, H.N., Bang, H.N., Takwa, Z.S., Mbur, A.T. (eds) Health Diplomacy in Africa. Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41249-3_5
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