25 September 2025

Brussels, Online

On 25 September 2025 from 09:00-10:30 CEST, ECDPM in collaboration with Aidsfonds, ONE, Global Health Advocates and Friends of the Global Fund Europe are hosting a hybrid event to launch a policy brief analysing the Global Fund’s contribution to achieving health sovereignty in Africa and how these efforts align with and support the rollout of the Global Gateway and relevance to key Team Europe Initiatives.

 In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, when access to critical countermeasures exposed structural flaws in the global health system, the question of African health sovereignty became central for African nations and their institutions. The publication of the New Public Health Order, a continental roadmap designed to build a more resilient, self-sufficient, and responsive health ecosystem across the continent, and the recent African Health Sovereignty summit demonstrate the African proactive leadership in health governance and aim to better protect African populations from future pandemics and endemic diseases.

Ahead of the AU-EU summit in November this year, the European Union (EU) has an opportunity to evaluate how some of its global health investments are contributing to African health sovereignty and to identify how to leverage existing frameworks such as the Global Gateway and Team Europe Initiatives to accelerate the achievement of this sovereignty. 
The EU’s contributions to multilateral global health initiatives play a critical role to play in this objective. The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria has been the world’s largest multilateral funder of global health grants in low- and middle-income countries and through its investments of US$65 billion to fight infectious diseases to date, it plays a critical role in strengthening health systems and accelerating progress toward universal health coverage (UHC), particularly by investing in resilient, community-level health delivery systems, that serve the most marginalised populations.

This event will present how the Global Fund’s model has been contributing to African health sovereignty by sharing stories of partnership, impact, and the power of shared priorities. It will reflect on the next chapter of EU–Africa health cooperation and how the Global Fund, amongst other initiatives, can support this new era. 

Register here