The COVID-19 pandemic revealed critical gaps in many country’s health systems and underscored challenges with the current global health architecture in terms of collaboration and use of evidence for decision-making. In addition to weak health systems, delayed access to lifesaving commodities such as vaccines and personal protective equipment (PPE) affected many African countries' national response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While grappling with access to lifesaving commodities, African governments also had to make difficult choices of adopting lockdown measures despite not having robust social policy programs to cater to the needs of the population, especially those living on a daily wage.

With the benefit of hindsight, what have we learned from the COVID-19 response in Africa? Given that the next pandemic is a matter of “when” and not “if”, what practical steps can African governments at national and continental levels take to better prepare for evidence-informed decision-making during the next pandemic? How can Africa's pandemic-related researchers, scientists, and innovators be better supported to interact with governments and translate their research into policy and practice? These and other similar questions will be answered during the panel discussion at this Satellite event during INGSA 2024.