Team Europe Support Structure on Manufacturing and Access to Vaccines, Medicines, and Health Technologies in Africa (TESS MAV+)
Accelerating equitable access to quality, safe, effective, and affordable health products in Africa

Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Strengthening health systems

Health and human development

Published on 05/09/2023

Objective

The project aims to set up an enabling environment for equitable access to quality, safe, effective, and affordable health products in Africa thanks to industrial development, research and technology transfer.

€15.5

BUDGET
01/01/2023

PROJECT START
36 months

DURATION

PROJECT FUNDED BY

PARTNERS

German international cooperation agency - GIZ

The project supports the shared goal of the African Union and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the European Union to strengthen local health systems to rapidly increase access to vaccines, medicines, and health technologies in Africa.

Context for focusing on access to health products

Currently, the African continent imports 99% of its vaccines.

The risks of relying on vaccine imports were made clear during the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw inequitable and delayed distribution of vaccines to the continent.

In this context, the African Union Commission and the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have called for the local production of 60% of Africa’s needed vaccines by 2040 and expanded local manufacturing of other health products.

The European Union and Member States are supporting these goals through the Team Europe Support Structure on Manufacturing and Access to Vaccines, Medicines, and Health Technologies in Africa (TESS MAV+) and its related Flagship program.

Approach to increasing access to health products

The TESS MAV+ project is part of a larger coordination between Team Europe and African partners to strengthen their local pharmaceutical systems and manufacturing capacity.

The coordination cuts across three dimensions:

- Supply

- Demand

- Enabling environment

These three key dimensions are broken down into six workstreams, which include national and regional interventions:

- Industrial development, supply chains, and private sector
- Market shaping, demand, and trade facilitation
- Regulatory strengthening
- Technology transfer and intellectual property management
- Access to finance
- Research and development, higher education, and skills

The TESS MAV+ project plays a specific role to provide:

- Operational support to the European Commission to facilitate the overall coordination of Member States as well as monitoring, evaluation, and communication for the MAV+ Flagship

- Technical Support to the MAV+ Flagship workstreams (led by Expertise France)

- Technical Support to the Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing Secretariat

- Technical Support to strengthen equitable access to quality health products in Africa

Through strong European and African alignment and partnership on this project, the two continents are working together to meet SDG 3.8: Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.

To find out more

Team Europe invests over 20 million to boost African Vaccine Manufacturing (europa.eu)

Team Europe Initiative on manufacturing and access to vaccines, medicines and health technologies in Africa (europa.eu)

Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM) Framework for Action – Africa CDC

Related field of activity

Strengthening health systems

The health system is made up of all the organisations, people and actions whose overriding objective is to promote, restore, maintain and improve the health of populations. This includes efforts which aim to influence the determinants of health, as well as more direct health improvement activities.