Johannesburg, South Africa: A continent-wide and dedicated women’s health initiative was launched in the City of Gold today to advocate for and implement solutions to improve healthcare for women in Africa. 

The South African launch comes as the Coalition for Women’s Health In Africa (CoWHA) was continentally launched in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, earlier this month.

CoWHA is the first initiative emanating from a conference held in February, in Kenya, where private healthcare firms, organisations and governments met to interrogate and carve out a novel approach to better healthcare systems on the continent. 

CoWHA is a joint initiative by principal founding members, Organon, (a women’s healthcare focused pharmaceutical company) the African Health Business consultancy (AHB), Hologic and BD, as founding members.  

Managing director of Organon South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, Dr Abofele Khoelesaid: “The need for Africa is huge. If you consider intersectionality, African women are right at the bottom of the pyramid in terms of how these factors come together to amplify each other and affect the outcomes of health care with women, African women in particular.”

Dr Khoele added: “A failure to protect the health of African women directly impacts on the health and future of our continent.”

He said that CoWHA’s mission is to address every challenge women face from a health and wellness perspective.

Dr Khoele said: “CoWHA will become an invaluable support system for women’s wellbeing and this will extend beyond healthcare. Everything we aim to achieve through caring for their health, will have a direct effect on the economic and future growth of our nations as the healthier our women, the more prosperous our communities.”

“Gender equity in access to healthresonates with Organon as a company, as illustrated in our vision of creating a better and healthier every day for every woman. Over the last year we have successfully embarked on initiatives that promote the wellbeing of women and give them access to mutually beneficial partnerships. Thus the natural next step for Organon was to take further action and we’re pleased to have found shared commonality with the African Health Business, Hologic and all the key stakeholders present at the launch.”    

The launch of CoWHA in South Africa comes after Organon attended the International Conference for Family Planning where they reiterated their committed towards reducing 120 Million unintended pregnancies globally by 2030. A significant committed which aligns with mission of COWHA of not only giving women access to healthcare by giving them options to better plan for their future.

Khoele noted that knowledge and deep research lie at the heart of CoWHA. So too does dialogue and policy development while creating overall awareness and a universal knowledge base for the public. “CoWHA will focus on the three strategic pillars namely Knowledge and Research, Policy and Dialogue and lastly Action, all of which are mission critical to achieving the stated objective of advancing women’s health. These three pillars will guide us in finding comprehensive solutions that can be implemented at grassroots level which is key to the success of achieving our objective. Ensuring that we work together to create sustainable investments in medical and scientific research, treatments and healthcare is urgently needed to raise the standard of the wellbeing of African women.”

Khoele emphasised that the health stakeholders need to continue what they have been doing, but with more determination and structure. “We must continue with health systems strengthening, with programs of early detection, diagnosis, and treatment and with initiatives that provide access to lifesaving and life-changing devices and medicines.”

Other notable speakers PLEASE CONFIRM IF MINISTER OF HEALTH DIRECTOR IS SPEAKING    

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 

The Africa region accounts for more than half of all maternal deaths worldwide per annum, despite it being a largely preventable occurrence. In addition, underinvestment in women’s health is still underwhelming with investments being channelled primarily to higher-level facilities at the expense of primary care of the rural populations leading to the lacklustre management of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes and hypertension 

About COWHA 

CoWHA is a membership-based private health sector action platform that strives to ensure that women in Africa have access to equitable, affordable, and quality healthcare.  

CoWHA is a collective private health sector action platform towards an enabling environment for the advancement of women’s health on the African continent. 

Africa Health Business acts as the secretariat and Organon is a Primary Principal Founding Member.  

About Organon 

Organon is a global healthcare company headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA that focuses on the improvement of women’s health throughout their lives. Organon has a portfolio of more than 60 medicines and products across a range of therapeutic areas. Organon has a global footprint with significant scale and geographic reach, and world-class commercial capabilities. In Africa and South Africa, Organon is headquartered in Johannesburg.  

For more information, check https://www.organon.com/  

About African Health Business 

Africa Health Business is a pan-African boutique consulting firm, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, that aims to improve access to equitable healthcare in Africa. Africa Health Business has a strong footprint in Africa and the expert team provides clients with effective, evidence-based solutions for today’s complex healthcare challenges. For more information, check https://www.ahb.co.ke/