The Pandemic Resilience Accelerator for African Health-Related Businesses was founded by the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), a pan-African institution at the forefront of policy harmonization, in partnership with JICA, the official development assistance agency of the Government of Japan, and with support from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global management consulting firm.

This initiative aims to accelerate African home-grown solutions (HGS) that are improving pandemic resilience. It provides hands-on, tailored acceleration support to growth and mature stage African health-related businesses that are improving healthcare capacity or reducing reliance on external medical supply chains.

The accelerator initiative has launched a 6-month pilot in the East African Community, with five companies selected from a highly competitive applicant pool and after a rigorous assessment process:

• Access Afya - Primary healthcare clinics in low-income neighborhoods
• Africa Healthcare Network - Provider of specialized renal care services at hospitals
• Damu Sasa - Technology enabled blood management system
• MSCAN - Producer of handheld ultrasound devices for low-resource settings
• Revital Healthcare - Manufacturer of essential medical supplies & consumables

Following a kick-off on the 23rd of March 2021, the accelerator has been in discussions with the selected companies to tailor support plans in line with the four topic areas of its offering and has started to provide the agreed-to support.

As the call-out above indicates, the tailored nature of the support means a wide range of support is provided by the accelerator. Even in this initial month, the accelerator has reviewed detailed financial models, advised on fundraising best practices, organized an expert coaching session to optimize a founder’s presentation (pitching) skills, started to review one company’s internal processes to ensure future robustness and reached out through our joint organizational networks to explore expertise and potential future partnerships.

Based on the outcome and learnings of this pilot programme in the East African Community (EAC), the accelerator aims to expand to other parts of Africa later this year. With the ultimate goal of improving our continent’s ability to respond to future health sector challenges, the initiative aims to support African home-grown solutions to grow and thrive across the continent.

To support this initial cohort of HGS by raising their visibility, as well as to market the accelerator in its own right in preparation of future expansion, regular (social) media updates will be actioned through the various institutional AUDA-NEPAD channels. Keep an eye out for these if you are interested to learn more about the companies and the support provided by the accelerator.

Organizations interested in joining the accelerator network as well as engaging with these exemplary companies by serving as advisors or providing direct support, or qualifying African home-grown solutions, can contact us by reaching out to George Murumba, the accelerator project lead via GeorgeM@nepad.org and pandemicresilience.africa@gmail.com.