Preparations in high gear ahead of 2nd EAC Health Sector Ministerial, Development Partners and Investors Roundtable in Nairobi

East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 26th October 2019: Preparations are in high gear for the 2nd East African Community (EAC) Heath Sector Ministerial, Development Partners and Investors Roundtable scheduled to take place from 31st October to 1st November 2019 at the Hilton Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya.

The two-day roundtable event themed: “Enhancing Health Sector Investments, Wellbeing and Wealth Creation in the East African Community" is expected to, among other things, provide an opportunity to consolidate efforts and resources of Partner States, Development Partners and Investors towards elaborately defined priorities and investment cases; share experiences, management challenges and visions of future financing trends and issues in order to instruct, improve, enlighten and secure sustainable resources for health and HIV in the EAC region, and; marshal financial and technical resources for implementation of the nine EAC Regional Health Sector Investment Priorities.

Speaking ahead of the roundtable, the EAC Deputy Secretary-General in charge of Productive and Social Sector, Hon. Christophe Bazivamo, said among participants at the meeting would be key representation from Governments, Development Partners, CSOs, the Private Sector, Investors, Philanthropists in the region with the aim of forging collaborative efforts and delving into the experiences of the different players in fundraising and effective domestic resource mobilization mechanisms for health and HIV.

Hon Bazivamo highlighted the four thematic areas that will be discussed during the roundtable meeting as follows:

Human resources for health, financing, infrastructure, and measurement;

Essential primary and specialized health services;

Regulation of medicines and other health technologies, and;

Health Research and development

The 2nd Ministerial, Development Partners and Investors’ Roundtable discussions will come up with a Roadmap on the implementation arrangements of the nine (9) Health Sector Investment Priorities and Resource Mobilization for the same.

The  2nd roundtable event will bring together  EAC Ministers of Health, Ministers responsible for EAC Affairs,  Permanent/Principal/Under Secretaries, Heads of the HIV Commissions/Councils and other Senior Officials from relevant Ministries including Finance, Education, Science and Technology; bilateral and multilateral development partners including banks (KfW, African Development Bank and World Bank), diplomatic missions, private business and innovators, UN Agencies, civil society organizations, and faith-based organizations, cultural institutions, research and academic institutions.

Note for Editors:

The 1st  EAC  Ministerial, Development Partners and Investors Roundtable, which was held on February 2018, directed the Council of Ministers to mobilize resources to support the implementation of the health sector investment priority projects.

These included strengthening the region’s capacity to effectively prepare and implement the priority projects, to develop comprehensive strategies to combat cross-border health challenges and to convene the Heads of State Retreats on health every two years. This is why the EAC Secretariat is convening the 2nd EAC Ministerial, Development Partners’ and Investors’ Roundtable in the month of October 2019.