The African Youth for Local Access of Health Products (AYLAHP) initiative

03 Apr 2023
African Youth for Local Access of Health Products
03 Apr 2023

This World Health Day (7 April), the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance is supporting the African Youth for Local Access of Health Products (AYLAHP), a newly established initiative.  AYLAHP aims to fill a gap by creating a network of African youth who are interested in local manufacturing of health products and providing them with a much needed platform to participate in strategic discussions that will shape the future of local manufacturing of health products on the African continent. Through this network African youth between ages 18 and 35 who have appropriate life sciences tertiary qualifications and technical experience (such as Pharmacists, Pharmacist Assistants, Laboratory Technologists, to name a few.) will be able to come together and advocate for necessary policy changes required to promote local manufacturing and access to health products on the continent.

“The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the supply chain vulnerabilities of supplying health products to African populations, including medicines, laboratory reagents, medical devices and diagnostics

This is largely due to a lack of local manufacturing, supportive industries and supply chains on the continent. Subsequently, this experience has led to a lot more serious and actionable conversations about strengthening these aspects on the African continent,” Farhan Yusuf, Project Lead for the AYLAHP.

Even though several Pan African strategic policies call for prioritising the youth who will be the leaders and workforce of the future, they have been largely absent from key policy conversations, including local manufacturing of health products.

The AYLAHP initiative will be led by Farhan Yusuf who is a fellow of the Nelson Mandela School’s 2018 Emerging African Leaders Programme (EALP). If you are an African youth interested in joining this movement, please click here to complete the Google form.

We look forward to engaging with you! #WHO75  #HealthForAll  #AYLAHP #BePartOfTheLegacy #AfCFTA

For more information and the rationale behind AYLAHP initiative, kindly contact Farhan Yusuf at farhan.yusuf88@yahoo.com and Kirti Narsai at kirti.narsai@uct.ac.za

Kirti Narsai is the Principal Researcher at the Nelson Mandela School, leading research on establishment and growth of regional healthcare value chains through focus on local manufacturing capabilities under the AfCFTA.