Health systems across the continent have depended on a combination of domestic public finance, development assistance and private spending. Today, all three sources of financing are under pressure.
Global official development assistance fell by 23.1% in 2025, the largest annual contraction on record, while the withdrawal of US assistance has created significant funding disruptions across African health systems.
Governments face substantial fiscal constraints and cannot be expected to replace the full volume of external financing being withdrawn. This creates an urgent question: where can additional capital come from?
Private capital has an increasingly important role to play, particularly in revenue-generating areas such as healthcare delivery, diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, insurance, health technology and infrastructure.
But private capital cannot simply replace aid.
The challenge is to identify where private capital can realistically be mobilised, what is preventing it from moving, and which financing and ecosystem interventions can make African healthcare more investable.
Join AVPA and Impact Investment Initiative for Global Health for a timely webinar exploring these questions.