Strategic Partnership : WHO Supports Scientific Innovation in Africa

The scientific community in Africa has received a boost following the signing of an MoU between the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The deal is expected to support more scientific innovations in the health sector and sustainably scale them up to guarantee a healthier and more productive future for Africa. The memorandum of understanding was signed on Monday October 28, 2019, during the 2019 Grand Challenges annual meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by Prof Felix Dapare Dakora, AAS President, and Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
According to the MoU, both parties will work towards putting in place “quality, safe, effective, affordable and sustainable high impact health interventions to benefit the public sector.” The AAS will implement the partnership through its Grand Challenges Africa (GC Africa) programme that promotes Africa-led innovations to help countries better achieve the SDGs by awarding seed and scale-up grants to the continent’s most impressive solutions. 
GC Africa is one of the AAS programmes implemented through the funding, programmatic and agenda-setting platform, the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA), an initiative of AAS and the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) supported by Wellcome, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Department for International Development (DFID).   
The partnership will also help to develop, launch, manage and support innovations that are high priority and are aligned to the ambition of African countries to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union Agenda 2063 of transforming Africa into a global powerhouse and deliver on inclusive and sustainable develo...