The President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA) advises the President of the U.S through the Secretary of Commerce on how to strengthen commercial engagement between the U.S. and Africa. A Recommendation Report www.trade.gov/pac-dbia/docs/PAC-DBIA-Report_Final.pdf dated April 2015 has been published by PAC-DBIA.
One section in the report discusses the need to strengthen the healthcare infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is key to allowing African countries to invest in health systems to increase critical access to primary care, diagnosis, and treatments.
However, the current funding mechanism for government assistance and public-private partnerships lack the flexibility to establish a sustainable healthcare infrastructure in Africa. Because of this roadblock, many African countries are unable to benefit from effective and readily available primary care services and treatment modalities needed to stem the global leading cause of death which is non-communicable diseases.
The PAC-DBIA wants to see funds used to increase primary care capacity in the health system. The objective is to provide significant resources needed annually to fight HIV/AIDS and to deal with acute healthcare emergencies such as Ebola. Another need is to allocate funds towards developing a skilled workforce to help in African countries to improve preventative healthcare and provide better diagnoses and treatment
Funding to strengthen health systems in urban and rural setting will improve coordination of care, increase efficiency and help to reduce mortality rates from noncommunicable diseases. The PAC-DBIA wants to erase weaknesses in the present healthcare system so that Africa won’t be so vulnerable to pandemics.
There is a need to implement a workable Private-Public Partnership (PPP) policy to focus on international standards, instituting disease-focused PPPs, and develop PPP models to target smaller health facilities in urban and rural areas to alleviate referral inefficiencies. Also small and medium sized enterprises need to participate in PPPs particularly in areas where health systems and energy needs intersect.