October 2026 Edition of the GET Webinar Series on Financing Health Security in Africa

Africa continues to face a complex and evolving landscape of health security threats, including infectious disease outbreaks, antimicrobial resistance, emerging and re-emerging pathogens, climate-related health risks, and other biological threats. Over the past decade, significant progress has been made in strengthening preparedness and response capacities across the continent. However, many of these efforts remain heavily dependent on short-term, emergency-driven, and external financing. The experience of recent health emergencies has demonstrated that preparedness cannot be built or sustained through crisis response alone. Surveillance systems, laboratories, health workforce capacity, research and innovation, vaccine and pharmaceutical manufacturing, emergency response mechanisms, and other critical health security capabilities require sustained investment before a crisis occurs. At the same time, African health systems continue to operate within significant fiscal constraints, competing priorities, and changing global financing landscapes. Declining or unpredictable external assistance, economic pressures, and the need for greater domestic ownership make it increasingly important to explore sustainable approaches to financing health security. There is therefore a need to shift from a predominantly crisis-response model towards long-term, predictable, and resilient financing for health security. This includes strengthening domestic resource mobilisation, integrating health security priorities into national health and development budgets, leveraging public-private partnerships, exploring innovative financing mechanisms, and improving coordination between governments, development partners, financial institutions, and other stakeholders. Sustainable financing is not simply about increasing the amount of funding available. It is also about ensuring that resources are strategically invested, efficiently used, and aligned with national and regional health security priorities. African countries and institutions must be able to maintain critical capacities between emergencies rather than rebuilding them when the next crisis occurs. This edition of the GET Webinar Series brought together experts and stakeholders to examine how Africa can strengthen the financial foundations of health security and move towards more sustainable, African-led preparedness.