Africa is creating one of the world's largest single markets. What does this mean for healthcare.

The Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is set to launch on 30th May. If every African country joins, it’s expected to be one of the world’s largest single markets, accounting for $4 trillion in spending and investment across the 54 countries and could be the new European Union on steroids .It's envisioned that the free trade area will lead to increased competition, innovation and prosperity for Africa’s people in the long term. But for the AfCFTA’s gains to be realized, entrepreneurs and policy-makers must be aligned. They must engage with each other to provide structure and clarity around how goods and services will move across borders , and around the benefits that the agreement will bring to business. These discussions between entrepreneurs and the trade ministries of their country will also enable the review and updating of national trade policies, discussions which will benefit both the government and business communities.By removing trade barriers and allowing the free movement of goods, services, and people across Africa, the AfCFTA could help to increase combined consumer and business spending on the continent to $6.7 trillion by 2030.  Technology would be integral to the movement of goods and services, especially with the introduction of pan-African business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) platforms. Examples including ,Jumia,Kenya’s MPESA and Zimbabwe’s ECoCash already show that Africa is truly becoming one market.

The Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) does also have implications for healthcare which would need to be addressed .As is true of other trade pacts, the AfCFTA free-movement rules will enable people to access government-funded health services in any member country. This will increase the number of foreign patients seeking treatment in countries with relatively strong health-care systems, such as Ghana ,South Africa .Citizens of these destination countries could feel the pinch as under financed medical services are stretched even further and this could pose a challenge as countries with strong healthcare systems would not want to subsidize its neighbors’ health systems.Free movement of people also increases the risk that diseases will spread across borders, especially given weak disease-surveillance systems and the instability of some African countries. The continuing Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a pressing concern. Other dangerous infectious diseases, such as cholera, may also spread farther and faster.

As we see expect a rise in medical tourism private healthcare initiatives would accelerate to meet that demand and this could be at the expense of weaker ,underfunded public health systems .To alleviate the strain that foreign patients put on countries’ public-health budgets, governments should consider introducing an African health insurance card similar to the one used in the European Union. Such a system would compensate host countries for the government-provided health services used by foreigners. Technology platforms that provide tele-medicine and virtualized care could have a tremendous impact on cross border health care and population health management strategies for chronic disease management. Such platforms could be linked with more advanced health care systems for remote consultations and could also accelerate a North /South collaboration that ultimately will help strengthen healthcare systems in the African south.

African countries would need to develop policies on medical tourism very soon hopefully before the treaty is ratified so that policies can be generated to cover long-term medical visas and enable cross-border use of health insurance. Rather than increasing entry barriers, professional groups should lobby for standardized medical exams across the continent to weed out quacks and improve the quality of care. Finally, extra investments are needed in border health services and emergency-response centers to protect against the spread of diseases. South /south collaboration would be accelerated and weaker healthcare systems can tap into the strength of stronger more robust healthcare systems .Recently Ghana launched the largest healthcare drone project on the planet to address emergency services delivery ,vaccines ,medicines and blood delivery throughot the country https://innov8tiv.com/ghana-deploys-biggest-medical-drones-in-the-world-to-deliver-supplies-to-remote-areas-and-in-emergencies/. Such learnings have the potential to be shared with neighboring countries as south south collaboration and also have implicationsfor stronger western healthcare systems North /South collaboration where such leanings can be applied to advanced healthcare systems such as in the USA.

In summary the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could be an opportunity to transform health care in Africa but Governments would have to put in place policies to address the issues raised in this article if we are to see a benefit of the agreement for all Africans.

references:

1.https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/will-free-trade-make-africans-sick

2.https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/AfCFTA-africa-continental-free-trade-area-entrepreneur/