The deadline for submissions is 17:00 Central European Time on 30 August 2024.

Equitable access to affordable, quality assured health products is an essential part of sustainable health systems. However, most of the world’s health products are produced in just a few higher-income countries, leaving many low- and middle-income countries vulnerable to price volatility, supply chain disruptions, or unavailability of essential health products. These risks are particularly acute during periods of supply scarcity when regional or global demand surges or after climate-related shocks or extreme weather events.

To ensure countries are better prepared to prevent and respond to new global health emergencies, people have continued access to the health commodities they need, and to build resilience to climate change, Unitaid is seeking proposals from partners who can support African manufacturers to achieve sustainable production of cost-competitive, quality-assured health tools, and bring them to market.

The new funding opportunity focuses on building African supplies of preventives, medicines and rapid tests used for postpartum hemorrhage, HIV and malaria, and directly supports other Unitaid initiatives to accelerate access to those key tools in countries where the need is greatest.

Through these investments in regional manufacturing, we seek to promote climate-smart health products, build resilience for future pandemic responses, increase supply security, lower costs, stimulate economic growth, empower communities and enhance quality of health tools across Africa.

This call for proposals is targeted at organizations or consortia with demonstrated expertise in upstream product development and manufacturing, and downstream activities including in-country product access. A separate call for expressions of interest targeted at manufacturers in Africa, contract research organizations and contract development and manufacturing organizations will be issued in June 2024, following this call for proposals.

For more information about the scope of this project and how to apply, please consult the call for proposals.