The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has intensified efforts to unlock an estimated one billion dollars in health financing through debt-for-health swaps as part of a broader strategy to secure sustainable funding for the continent’s health systems.
Dr Jean Kaseya, Director-General, AfricaCDC, made this known during a weekly high-level regional press briefing on Thursday.
Kaseya said sustainable financing is now one of the institution’s five strategic pillars, with a focus on mobilising innovative domestic resources and exploring previously underutilised mechanisms such as debt swaps.
“When we talk about sustainable financing, we are looking at increasing innovative domestic resources and also bringing funding that we didn’t explore in the past, like debt swaps,” he said.
According to him, Debt swaps, arrangements in which part of a country’s external debt is forgiven in exchange for domestic investment in agreed development priorities, are increasingly viewed as a tool to ease fiscal pressure while strengthening health security.
To drive the initiative, he said that Africa CDC has appointed Mr Christoph Benn, as Senior Advisor to the Director-General.
“Benn, a German health financing specialist with over 30 years of global experience, is currently Director of Global Health Diplomacy at the Joep Lange Institute in Geneva.
“He previously led resource mobilisation at the Global Fund to Fight AIDs, Tuberculosis and Malaria, where he played a key role in securing billions of dollars for infectious disease programmes and advancing innovative financing mechanisms,” he said.
He said Benn is working with Africa CDC’s public financial management and health financing teams to finalise technical support for African Union member states seeking to structure and negotiate debt-for-health swap agreements.
The Director-General also referenced discussions with German officials on innovative financing models, citing an example in which 100 million dollars was unlocked to complement government contributions to the Global Fund, bringing total support to one billion dollars.
He said that Africa CDC is expected to release an op-ed in the coming days outlining its debt swap strategy and broader sustainable financing agenda.
The push comes at a time when many African countries face mounting debt burdens and shrinking traditional donor support, limiting fiscal space for health investment.
Analysts said debt-for-health swaps could provide a pathway for countries to redirect resources toward disease surveillance, outbreak preparedness and primary healthcare strengthening without increasing borrowing.
Africa CDC’s financing reform agenda forms part of its wider strategy to strengthen Africa’s health sovereignty and reduce over-reliance on external aid.
