KISUMU, Kenya, July 26 –As Africa stands at a crossroads in its development journey, one truth remains inescapable: no nation or continent can rise without a healthy, empowered population.
The conversation around African growth often centres on infrastructure, trade, and industrialisation.
Yet, one of the most powerful—and often overlooked—catalysts of transformation lies in our healthcare systems and the human capital behind them.
This was the central theme at a powerful panel discussion titled “Reclaiming Africa’s Destiny”, held during the 2025 Afreximbank Annual Meetings in Abuja, Nigeria.
Economic Infrastructure
The session brought together a rare convergence of leaders from healthcare, finance, and academia, including Brian Deaver, CEO of the newly inaugurated African Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE), and Oluranti Doherty.
Also present was the Managing Director of Export Development at Afreximbank, and Professor Ghulam Mufti, a world-renowned haematologist from King’s College London.
At the heart of the conversation was a simple yet profound idea: health is not just a social good—it is economic infrastructure. Without it, productivity stalls, trade is hampered, and human potential goes unrealised.
Few examples embody this more vividly than the AMCE in Abuja, which opened its doors in June 2025.
This state-of-the-art facility, developed in partnership with Afreximbank, was not built merely to treat patients—it was built to shift paradigms.
For decades, Africa has haemorrhaged billions annually in outbound medical tourism.
Nigerian patients alone spend an estimated 40 percent of their total healthcare expenditures abroad.
The result?
A draining of local capital, a loss of professional confidence, and a system that implicitly tells African citizens that care must be imported to be trusted.
AMCE is working to reverse that narrative.
In Deaver’s words, “This hospital is not only about delivering care, but about teaching, training, research and building a workforce.”
With a focus on diseases like cancer and cardiovascular illness—areas often neglected in African health policy—the AMCE signals a shift from reactive to proactive, from dependent to self-sufficient.
The project’s significance extends far beyond its walls. For Afreximbank, it reflects a bold vision of export development that includes not just goods, but services—and especially health services.
“Health is one of Africa’s most under-exported sectors,” Doherty noted adding that: “We cannot talk about reclaiming Africa’s destiny without ensuring its people are healthy enough to pursue it.”
This recognition of healthcare as a pillar of trade and economic resilience is long overdue.
Locally Rooted Care
A robust health system retains value within borders, boosts productivity, and creates jobs. More importantly, it restores a sense of agency and dignity to professionals and patients alike.
Professor Mufti, whose career has spanned continents and generations, emphasised the importance of collaborative, locally rooted care.
“We are not coming here to impose—we are coming to learn and to partner,” he said.
It’s a message too often missed by well-meaning global initiatives: that sustainable progress must be co-created with, not merely delivered to, African institutions.
At a time when Africa faces the twin challenges of brain drain and weak health systems, the path forward must prioritise talent retention.
As Deaver powerfully put it: “We must equip young doctors, researchers and nurses to believe that they can have fulfilling careers here in Africa.”
The AMCE is just one example—but it offers a blueprint. One that says African patients deserve world-class care at home.
African doctors don’t have to choose between excellence and staying on the continent.
And that Africa’s destiny is not something to be outsourced or deferred—it is something to be built, brick by brick, from within.
Investing in healthcare is not a diversion from the development agenda—it is the foundation of it. If Africa is to reclaim its future, the health of its people must come first.
The author is a media consultant, senior writer and an advocate of better governance and democracy in Africa.Kepherpeace@gmail.com
