Health sovereignty, pillar of Morocco’s African policy

Morocco has attached particular importance to health cooperation in Africa, as part of a larger south-south cooperation approach, that aims at addressing the continent’s pressing human development needs.

The launch of the African Academy of Health Sciences, to promote research and training and enhance the continent’s health sovereignty is another brick in the edifice of Morocco’s African foreign policy.

The academy thus plans to fill in the research gap between African experts with a view of creating synergies to find African solutions to African challenges, while fostering networks with global research centers.

Morocco has made steady efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in critical medicine and medical equipment. With lessons learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic, the North African country, under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, has set the goal of strengthening its health sovereignty by giving investments in the medical and pharmaceutical sector a strategic character eligible to state aid.

Africa took center stage in this strategy with the country dedicating a part of its production of vaccines and medicine to the continent.

Faithful to its south-south cooperation paradigm, Morocco is also leading by example. During the Covid-19 pandemic, when access to medical equipment was complicated amid export restrictions and rarity in the international market, Morocco sent masks, visors, hygiene caps, gowns, hydroalcoholic gel, and medications like chloroquine and azithromycin to 15 African countries.

Morocco is also working to become a major vaccine producer with a focus to export to Africa. In October last year, Moroccan health minister had told a summit of African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Marrakech, that the Kingdom was forging public-private partnerships to develop the entire value chain of the local manufacturing of vaccines and biotechnologies products, in order to achieve the Moroccan and continental vaccine sovereignty.

“Under the leadership of His Majesty, the King Mohammed VI, the kingdom of Morocco is strongly committed to collaborate and support the Africa CDC efforts, in order to achieve the goal of 60% of Africa’s vaccine needs produced on the continent by 2040,” he had said.