Contributions to Policy

The multi-disciplinary, multi-national nature of TIBA has been critical to delivering high-level, real-world impact in Africa as outlined below.

TIBA contributed to developing the African Union’s ‘Health Research and Innovation Strategy for Africa (HRISA) 2020-2030’. TIBA facilitated the technical working group and played a key role in producing the report (both contributions are acknowledged in the published document). HRISA was formally adopted by AU member countries in 2019 and is shaping national health research and innovation strategies for African Union member countries.

TIBA collaborated with the WHO AFRO and the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) to assess ‘National Health Research Systems in the WHO African Region’ in 2018 leading to the development of a strategy for addressing weaknesses. At the Grand Challenges Meeting in Ethiopia in 2019, the WHO AFRO Regional Director, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, thanked TIBA for this collaborative work on the health systems barometer.

TIBA’s collaborative work with the African Academy of Sciences, AUDA/NEPAD and the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation delivered a train-the-trainer programme on Intellectual Property Management in the African pharmaceutical sector.

We also collaborated with the African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative (AVMI) to develop a roadmap for an ‘African Vaccine Policy’. This project is not about developing new vaccines (that is not within our scope) but it will make a significant contribution to building the requisite capacity in Africa to do so. In 2020 the WHO Director General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus acknowledged TIBA’s collaborative efforts with the AVMI to develop an African vaccine policy.