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Africa’s medium-sized healthcare firms provide essential care and keep medical supplies moving. Yet many struggle to secure funding to expand. Banks love multinationals. Venture investors focus on startups. Meanwhile, mid-size health firms face financing gaps that limit services available to patients. What to do?
Treezer Michelle Atieno - Editor
Many growth-level healthcare businesses in Africa have plans to expand but struggle to attract investment. A new EU guarantee aims to support $170 million in investment through the First Mover Health Fund, targeting hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies, medical distributors, manufacturers and nutrition companies across sub-Saharan Africa.
Expansion requires spending before new services earn enough to cover costs. Uncertain revenues make investors cautious, while short repayment periods can make loans difficult to manage. In Ghana, Accra Medical Centre needed financing with a longer repayment period that IFC said commercial markets were not offering until it stepped in.
The new EU guarantee will absorb part of the investment risk, aiming to attract investors into businesses they might otherwise avoid. The immediate change is protection against potential losses. The financing terms healthcare companies will receive remain to be established.
Our take: A healthcare business can be worth backing yet unable to grow on the financing terms available. EU protection gives investors room to offer better terms…Read more (2 min)
When a clinic cannot arrange a diagnostic test, the patient may have to travel to another hospital. Yet HIV and tuberculosis programmes already transport samples from clinics to laboratories. Ifedayo Adetifa argues that sharing these routes for other tests could expand clinics’ diagnostic services, reduce sample transport costs and spare patients travel expenses.
“If we are serious about integrated care, the diagnostic optimisation has to be integrated too, designed around the shared platform a patient actually meets rather than around a single programme's priorities,” writes Mr Adetifa, a Physician Epidemiologist and former Director General at CDC Nigeria.
This requires reliable sample collection, laboratories with trained staff and funding to keep services running. Adetifa calls for governments to budget for these costs so that access to testing does not depend on donor support.
Read the full opinion…Read more (2 min)
Five healthcare projects worth at least $139 million were announced across Africa between June and September 2026, targeting gaps in healthcare delivery like hospital capacity, diagnostics, emergency transport and maternal-health connectivity. More than $113 million of the disclosed investment is tied to hospital and diagnostics.
Three projects are adding hospital as well as diagnostic capacity. Cameroon announced an upgraded national polio laboratory on 12 June, Egypt announced a $16.55 million rapid-test manufacturing plant on 26 July and South Africa announced the $97 million, 220-bed King Nyabela Hospital on 4 August.
The other two focus on connecting patients to care. Ghana announced five locally built ambulances for remote communities on 3 September, while Nigeria announced a $25 million maternal-health programme on 22 September. It will provide phones and cheaper data to frontline health workers and improve internet access at primary healthcare facilities.
Our take: Hospitals and diagnostics may be less visible than new treatments, but without them patients still struggle to receive care…Read more (2 min)
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Ahmed Tawakal, a healthcare management expert, says, “Perhaps the next phase of Kenya’s healthcare service delivery lies with value addition. Specialty hospitals could be the next big healthcare opportunity. Already some specialties like orthopaedics, oncology, cardiac care, ophthalmology and other specialised services are already demonstrating the potential of focused models of care. With the right investment, partnerships, technology and economies of scale, these facilities could improve quality, expand access and position Kenya as a regional destination for specialised healthcare.”