Health problems in Africa are integral to other development problems.  Insufficient water for good sanitation and poorly managed sewage increase the risk of water-borne diseases and epidemics. Poor nutrition, food insecurity, inadequate agricultural yields, and poor markets, worsened by droughts and floods, have profound consequences on children’s health, growth, development and school performance.   Lack of infrastructure – healthcare centers, roads linking healthcare with people, and transport – lowers the chances of timely health care.  

Insufficient numbers of students trained in science means an inadequate number of appropriate healthcare workers.  Maternal mortality rates, unacceptably high in many African countries, are linked to education rates for women and to women’s economic empowerment.  The HIV/AIDS pandemic is linked in some measure to poverty, poor education, gender relations, and to development corridors over which truck drivers travel.  Mining activities, which generate significant revenues for resource-rich countries, often affect the health of the populations living in the project areas.

To sustainably reduce poverty in Africa, development investments must consider public health, directly and indirectly. Development aid is sector-specific, but health cuts across all sectors.  

Major investments in health in Africa have not built strong public healthcare systems. The shortage of well-trained health workers and inadequate infrastructure, especially in remote and poor areas, constitute two of the major weaknesses. There is considerable funding for specific diseases, such as malaria, TB, and HIV/AIDS, but very little financing for regional disease control and surveillance: the research promises a better future, but lack of funding for preventive healthcare remains necessary.

To strengthen the weakest elements of African health care systems and to leverage limited resources, the Bank invests in building and upgrading healthcare infrastructure and in training health professionals.  By making these choices, the Bank can also create synergies with its investments in tertiary scientific and technological education, in agriculture, in infrastructure, and in water and sanitation.  In addition, the Bank supports regional health initiatives, such as, for example, the challenges posed by river blindness.