Abstract
This chapter examines the role of African Regional Economic Groupings and sub-regional agencies in health promotion and cooperation. It observes that different regional groupings pay varying emphasis to health cooperation. Whereas the Arab Maghreb Union has not created a platform for health cooperation, and ECCAS as well as COMESA, and SADC are still in the process of elaborating and implementing community health policies for their sub-regions, the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) of ECOWAS and the East African Health Research Commission (EAHRC) facilitate and promote health diplomacy by coordinating actions between and among member States. The EAHRC has built an elaborate framework with sub-organisations that promote health cooperation between government institutions, research and academic bodies, the youths and other structures.
Notwithstanding these efforts, the Ebola epidemics of 2014 and 2017 in West Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, respectively, and the more recent COVID-19 pandemic, have projected the stack reality that Africa needs to act in concert to pre-empt and address health challenges. In this respect, the chapter examines the role of the Africa CDC in seeking solutions to the continent’s health problems.
There is the need for the African Union to build a stronger and self-reliant cooperation block capable of funding the implementation of its own policies, which is, unfortunately not the case at the moment. There is the need for all regional groupings in Africa to create health organisations that will cooperate with each other to benchmark and share experiences on health risks. It is crucially important for the AU to concretely support the development of African phytotherapy and African traditional medicine in the spirit of decoloniality to prevent the extinction of African indigenous pharmacological knowledge.
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Notes
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“EU, ECOWAS, GIZ Launch Regional Support to Improve Surveillance and Response Networks against Epidemics in the West African Region”, www.eeas.europa.eu.
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Tasha, A.B.M., Elessa, G. (2023). The Role of Regional Agencies in African Health Diplomacy. 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_4
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