Somalia Urges African Nations to Boost Regional Healthcare Cooperation and Local Pharmaceutical Production

NOUAKCHOTT – Somalia has called for a fundamental shift in regional healthcare strategy, urging African nations to prioritize deepened cooperation and aggressive investment to build resilient health systems capable of weathering future crises.

Speaking at a regional health investment forum in Nouakchott, Mauritania, Somalia’s Health Minister Ali Haji Adam emphasized that the path to health security for developing nations lies in reducing dependency on external aid and fostering internal African partnerships.

The call comes at a critical juncture for the continent, as African states grapple with the dual challenge of eradicating endemic diseases while modernizing infrastructure to prevent the next global pandemic. For Somalia, the urgency is compounded by a decades-long effort to reconstruct a state apparatus shattered by conflict, recurrent humanitarian emergencies and systemic underinvestment.

Pharmaceutical Sovereignty and Local Production

A central pillar of Minister Adam’s address was the necessity of localized medical manufacturing. The current reliance on imported pharmaceuticals often leaves the most vulnerable populations in the Global South subject to supply chain volatility, export restrictions and prohibitive pricing.

“Closer collaboration among developing countries, sustainable financing and investment in local pharmaceutical production were essential to improving access to healthcare across the region,” Adam said.

This push for local production aligns with the broader goals of the African Medicines Agency (AMA), an African Union treaty-based body designed to harmonize regulatory standards across the continent. By creating a unified regulatory environment and common quality benchmarks, African nations aim to attract the private capital necessary to build vaccine hubs and generic drug facilities, thereby ensuring that essential medicines are produced closer to the patients who need them and approved under predictable rules.

The forum in Nouakchott served as a nexus for health ministers, international organizations and development partners to coordinate these strategies and signal policy intent to investors. Discussions focused on:

• Mobilizing sustainable domestic and regional financing to gradually replace volatile grant-based funding.
• Accelerating the integration of digital health records and disease surveillance tools to improve cross-border health security.
• Creating regional procurement blocs and pooled purchasing mechanisms to increase bargaining power with global pharmaceutical firms.

The Framework of South-South Cooperation

Addressing a ministerial panel specifically focused on South-South cooperation, Minister Adam positioned Somalia’s internal healthcare reforms as a case study in recovery and resilience from protracted crisis. He outlined the government’s current efforts to rebuild its primary healthcare network and reform governance structures to ensure equitable service delivery, particularly in hard‑to‑reach and conflict‑affected areas.

South-South cooperation-the exchange of resources, technology and knowledge between developing countries-is increasingly viewed by African policymakers as a more sustainable complement to traditional North-South aid. By sharing lessons learned from similar socio-economic and climatic contexts, nations in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel can implement solutions that are culturally and economically viable, rather than importing models designed for wealthier health systems.

Adam asserted that regional partnerships would play a key role in improving access to healthcare, strengthening health security, and supporting equitable health services. This strategy seeks to leverage the comparative advantages of neighboring states-such as training institutions, diagnostic capacity or pharmaceutical manufacturing-to fill gaps in specialized care and medical education.

He also framed the agenda as part of a broader shift towards African-led health governance, in which regional economic communities and the African Union set priorities and standards while external partners align their support behind those frameworks.

Institutional Recovery in Somalia

The Somali healthcare system remains one of the most fragile in the world, having suffered extensive damage during years of civil unrest and climate-driven displacement. The current administration is focused on transitioning from emergency humanitarian response to a structured, state-led health system anchored in public policy and national regulation.

This transition involves several critical institutional milestones:

• Re-establishing centralized oversight of medical licensing and pharmacy regulations to curb unregulated practice and counterfeit drugs.
• Expanding the reach and quality of maternal and child health services in rural and peri-urban districts where state presence is weakest.
• Integrating community-based health workers into the formal national health strategy, with standardized training, supervision and remuneration.

Officials say aligning these national reforms with regional investment trends is essential to ensure that Somalia’s recovery is supported by stable, long-term financing rather than short-term humanitarian cycles. That includes tapping concessional lending, diaspora investment and private sector partnerships conditioned on clear regulatory guarantees.

Somalia continues to work with the World Health Organization and the African Union to align its national health sector strategic plan with the broader African Union Agenda 2063, which identifies human capital, health security and pharmaceutical manufacturing as core pillars of the continent’s long-term development. In Nouakchott, Minister Adam cast that alignment as not only a development objective but a test of whether African governments can collectively build the regulatory and institutional resilience needed to withstand the next major health emergency.