AfHEA’s conferences are attended by a variety of participants: high-level dignitaries such as Ministers and staff of the Health and Finance Ministries and other government institutions and agencies dealing with health sector and financing or policy issues. Other notable participant includes academics; representatives from development organizations; practitioners in the fields of Health Economics, Healthcare Financing and Health Policy; researchers (both seasoned and Early career); as well as students.

Learn more about AfHEA's latest and past conferences below:

AfHEA 2025Conference

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2022 Virtual Conference (past)

The conference was held virtually in Kigali, Rwanda, under the theme, “Towards Resilient Health Systems in Africa: The Role of Health Economics and Policy Research”. The theme of the conference is of much significance given the important role of research evidence in driving policy making. In addition, the ravaging effects brought by COVID-19 threaten to worsen health outcomes in the African region, and undo some of the notable achievements that have been realised in most of these countries.

It has also amplified the importance of knowledge sharing and exchange of information on how best to use health economics and policy research in making informed decision to build resilient and sustainable health systems which are responsive to the needs of people.

AfHEA 6th Scientific Conference
7 - 11 March 2022 | Virtual
Towards Resilient Health Systems in Africa: The Role of Health Economics and Policy Research

Conference Daily Report -
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Conference Agenda
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Programme and Abstract Book
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Conference recordings
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The broad theme of the conference is: Towards Resilient Health Systems in Africa: The Role of Health Economics and Policy Research.

The sub-themes of the conference are:

Decolonizing Health Economics and policy research and the drive for greater equity and inclusion.
Vaccine economics: equity, distribution, financing, trade and the lessons learnt during the covid-19 pandemic.
What adjustments are required to make health and health financing systems in Africa more resilient to pandemics?
Cost-effectiveness of addressing social/underlying determinants of poor health vs. funding medical interventions.
Building back better health systems: the role of innovation, multi-sectoral approaches and global financial architecture in building resilient health systems in Africa.
UHC, politics, policy processes, and reforms during covid-19 pandemic.
The role and use of data and evidence for policy decisions in a pandemic (the case of covid-19).
Looking to the future: what plans are in place to mitigate the impact of covid-19 post the pandemic?

Health Economics, Public Health and Health Policy researchers in particular are encouraged to submit abstracts on this broad theme and its sub-themes or indeed on any other interesting, innovative, or topical African health sector or systems research which upon selection by our scientific committee may be presented orally or in poster format at the conference.

AfHEA 5th Scientific Conference
11 - 14 March 2019 | Accra - Ghana
Securing PHC for all: the foundation for making progress on UHC in Africa

Conference Agenda
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Abstract Book
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Media Gallery
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The broad theme of the conference is: Securing PHC for all: the foundation for making progress on UHC in Africa

This broad theme acknowledges the important role of PHC in the achievement of UHC. Strengthening PHC improves equity, accessibility and quality of care. Similarly, UHC ensures access to needed good quality health services irrespective of ability to pay. The two are therefore closely related. PHC is the main gateway to healthcare for the majority of the population, especially for those living in rural and underserved communities.

A well-functioning PHC system will be able to respond to the health care needs of most of the population, including preventive, promotive and non-specialist clinical care, at a much lower cost than if similar services were provided at higher levels of the health care system.

Thus securing PHC for all is a more cost-effective way to move towards the UHC agenda of any country, particularly for low income and lower middle income countries (LICs/LMICs) where the resource constraints are most severe.

Health Economics, Public health and Health Policy researchers in particular are encouraged to submit abstracts on this broad theme or indeed on any other interesting, innovative, or topical African health sector or systems research which upon selection by our scientific committee may be presented orally or in poster format at the conference.

AfHEA 4th Scientific Conference
26 - 29 September 2016 | Rabat-Morocco
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
the Grand Convergence and Health in Africa

Detailed Conference Agenda
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Abstract Book
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Agenda (at a glance)
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The African Health Economics & Policy Association (AfHEA) was set up in March 2009 as a membership-based non-profit association of Africans and non-Africans including students working on Africa-related issues in the fields of health economics, financing and policy.
AfHEA aspires to help improve health outcomes in Africa by promoting high quality and standards in the generation of policy-relevant evidence and promoting the use of appropriate health economics, policy and financing tools within the health sector in Africa.
Although there are signs that health sector policy making in Africa appears to be increasingly benefiting from the insights that health economics and health policy evidence and analyses are able to offer (in part due to the greater awareness of the benefits of such evidence and analyses promoted by several stakeholders including AfHEA),
it is also clear that both country capacities in these fields and utilization of such tools vary widely across Africa and both are still often woefully inadequate or even absent.

AfHEA conferences contribute to capacity building of, and networking among, experts working in these fields in Africa, as well as promoting the above-mentioned aspirations of high quality and standards in the generation of policy-relevant evidence and the use of appropriate health economics, policy and financing tools in the sector.

Following on the last AfHEA conference in Kenya (March 2014), AfHEA is continuing the delivery of the bilingual biennial conference focused on critical themes for the African health sector as identified by its management and scientific committee to stimulate research and provide an outlet for the latest research findings and debates of relevance to Africa.
The theme of the 2016 conference will be the following: “The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Grand Convergence and Health in Africa".

AfHEA 1st Scientific / Inaugural Conference
10 - 12 March 2009 | Accra - Ghana
Priorities of Health Economics in Africa

Programme and Abstract Book
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Detailed Conference Agenda
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Conference Poster Presentations
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Programme Outline (Oral Presentations)
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The overall theme of the conference is "Priorities of health economics in Africa".

Main sub-themes of the conference:

User fees
Health insurance and equitable health care financing in Africa
New international health care financing mechanisms and initiatives
Human resources for health in Africa
Economic evaluation of health services in Africa
Measuring health and factors contributing to health
Microeconomic techniques and issues
Preferences and willingness to pay
Economics and financing of AIDS and malaria in Africa
Health research priorities

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on AfHEA Biennial Conferences

The location of our conferences is largely determined by AfHEA’s network of members. The first 2 conferences were held in West African countries because at the time majority of AfHEA members were based in West Africa. However, AfHEA decided to further expand its network eastwards and southwards and a decision was made to hold the 3rd conference in East Africa.

Morocco was chosen for the next 4th conference in order to build further links with our colleagues in the Maghreb who have been running a similar network, RESSMA, longer than AfHEA. AfHEA hopes by this decision to expand its network in the Maghreb region and bring in experienced colleagues to support our capacity building mandate. We are also committed to holding a conference in the Southern African region as soon as practicable.

Besides the network of members, other determining factors include: willingness and readiness of a country to hold a conference; and availability of the required infrastructure.

Our conferences last over a period of 3 days. The conferences usually consist of 6 plenary sessions (2 each day; 1 in the morning and 1 at the end of the day) and various parallel sessions organized according to the conference themes. In between the parallel sessions are poster presentations and exhibitions. We also hold pre-conference events such as training workshops on the day before the conference starts.

AfHEA’s conferences are attended by a variety of participants: high-level dignitaries such as Ministers of Health and Finance and the staff of those Ministries and other government institutions and agencies dealing with health sector and financing or policy issues; academics; representatives from development organizations; practitioners in the fields of Health Economics, Healthcare Financing and Health Policy; researchers (both seasoned and up-coming); as well as students.

Unlike other international conferences (such as the Global Symposium), which witness thousands of participants, AfHEA’s conference attendance is relatively low (about 250). This makes the overhead costs for AfHEA’s conferences relatively high, forcing us to charge higher conference costs. Moreover, unlike most of those other conferences, AfHEA bears full translation and interpretation charges for all conference documentation, sessions and web postings. Finally, AfHEA is committed to ensuring the participation of members from low-income countries or facing other difficult challenges but who also have abstract or papers to present, thus further increasing the overhead costs of the conference.

Nevertheless, AfHEA has been making efforts to bring down the costs of conference participation as evidenced by the efforts to reduce the costs of the 4 conferences (except for Nairobi which went up slightly due to the venue costs): Accra ($1,400), Saly ($1,200), Nairobi ($1,250) and Rabat ($1,050). Moreover, the costs for AfHEA’s fully paid members are usually lower than for non-members, for instance, for Nairobi conference, members paid $1,100 and for Rabat members will pay $900.

We therefore encourage participants to sign up to become AfHEA members.

Yes! In all our previous conferences, we have offered some form of scholarship to encourage participation. However, our priority is towards female participants and students from low-income countries. This is because AfHEA’s key mandates include building the capacity of young researchers and ensuring equity by supporting those who face additional challenges to full participation in our activities e.g. demonstrable financial ones and gender under-representation

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on AfHEA Biennial Conferences

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AfHEA 3rd Scientific Conference March 11 - 13, 2014 \| Nairobi, Kenya
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