The session was held as a side event at the second in-person international conference on public health in Africa organized by The South African Health Technological Advocacy Coalition (SAHTAC), The Coalition for Health Research and Development (CHReaD) and Pandemic Action Network (PAN). The dialogue, held in a panel discussion format, played an important facet to informing participants on the impetus for building better and responsive healthcare systems that can act as effective buffers for any future health threats using lessons from the COVID – 19 pandemic in the continent. The panelists together with participants from all over the globe in person and those who joined virtually engaged in the dialogue to specifically tackle challenges and leverage innovative efforts to (i) build and grow local and regional production capabilities to strengthen healthcare systems in the continent, (ii) explore innovative ways to adequately finance preparedness and responsiveness for future health threats, (iii) explore innovations around the need to strengthen technical capacities and efforts for local manufacturing in Africa for better healthcare systems, (iv) take stock of progress made in strengthening regulatory capacity in Africa and challenges in action and the need to unlock them. The discussions in each panel were informative and action oriented with a focus on calling all stakeholders to act. The purpose of this report is to summarize the main points from the dialogue.
