I am at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital in Uganda, where I have witnessed the faces of parents who have traveled too far with too little, desperately seeking healthcare for their children. For these families, the distance to our facility is…
Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) is often described as a "silent pandemic," but for those of us on the front lines in East Africa, this silence is breaking. The resistant microorganisms have been taking advantage of our porous borders, from the busy…
When we encounter data on maternal and newborn mortality, it is tempting to see these as only numbers. Yet, the statistics translate into families torn apart, a diminished workforce, and the loss of precious lives that would have fueled our…
For African food systems to truly transform, regional policy must move from the boardroom to the bottom line. Bridging the gap between theory and practice is no longer optional, it is essential. Experience across our member states suggests that the…
Every day at airports, land borders, and seaports across East, Central, and Southern Africa, a silent but powerful process takes place: data collection. At points of entry such as Kilimanjaro International Airport in Tanzania and across borders in countries like…
Imagine a critical care unit in a regional hospital somewhere in Africa. Let's call it Country A, where five beds sit empty, not for lack of patients, but for lack of specialized nurse to man them. Meanwhile, across a shared…
The year 2014 remains a stark reminder of the cost of silence in global health. When Ebola first surfaced in West Africa, the virus spread out in communities through a vacuum of information. In a remote village, that’s where the…
For decades, the story of public health in Africa has been told in five-year chapters, which is the typical lifespan of a donor grant. In this cycle, we implement with urgency and report with diligence, but all too often, we…
