AfyaFest 2025: Accelerating health innovation for a sustainable Africa

According to the World Health Organization, climate change could cause an additional 250,000 deaths annually between 2030 and 2050 from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.

Heatwaves, floods and droughts are not only increasing the spread of disease but also undermining access to care and placing additional strain on already fragile health systems.

AfyaFest 2025, taking place from August 26-28 in Nairobi, Kenya, and hosted by Amref Health Africa and Amref International University, is designed to respond directly to these twin challenges. Organised by the Africa Health Collaborative (AHC), the event will bring together health innovators, policymakers, funders and researchers from Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal, Rwanda, Ghana, South Africa, Mauritius and Canada.

This year’s convening reflects a shared urgency to reimagine Africa’s health systems in the face of mounting climate and social pressures.

AfyaFest is a platform to spotlight local innovations that are solving real-world health problems. These include community-led maternal care models, digital health tools tailored to low-resource settings and climate-smart public health responses.

The convergence of Francophone and Anglophone stakeholders underscores a pan-African commitment to cross-border knowledge exchange and collaborative action.

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Across the continent, African innovators are already addressing complex health challenges with context-specific, cost-effective solutions, from mobile clinics reaching remote communities to digital platforms that track vaccine delivery and monitor disease outbreaks in real time. AfyaFest provides the visibility, networks, and momentum needed to connect these solutions to policy, investment and scale.

The Africa Health Collaborative plays a key role in strengthening these innovation ecosystems by supporting local incubators and partnering with universities and ministries of health.

Amref’s hosting of AfyaFest signals an important shift: academic institutions are increasingly becoming centres of action, not just theory, co-creating the future of health delivery, training the next generation of health leaders and informing policy with evidence from the ground up.

With Africa’s population being the youngest in the world, AfyaFest will feature youth-led sessions and innovations that place young people at the centre of shaping solutions.

Kenya’s pursuit of Universal Health Coverage and its reputation as a regional technology hub create a powerful backdrop for AfyaFest 2025. For innovation to thrive, it must be responsive to local realities and inclusive of the voices often left behind, particularly women, youth and rural communities.

A notable focus of this year’s event is youth engagement. With Africa’s population being the youngest in the world, AfyaFest will feature youth-led sessions and innovations that place young people at the centre of shaping solutions.

Their leadership is crucial in scaling Primary Health Care, the bedrock of resilient health systems, which brings services closer to communities, especially in underserved areas, enabling prevention, early intervention and continuity of care.

AfyaFest is a rallying point. It challenges us to champion African-led solutions that build strong health systems, the foundation for development, resilience and prosperity. The time to act is now.

The writer is a climate action enthusiast and a communications specialist at Windward Communications Consultancy.