Can Rising Interest In Africa’s Climate-Health Research Transform The Continent?

By Jean-Pierre Afadhali

In recent years, several initiatives and projects in climate-health have been launched across Africa, signalling a growing commitment to tackling the impact of extreme weather on public health.

Some projects include partnerships with higher learning institutions; others are being undertaken by research organisations, weather-related institutions, continental and global health bodies.

In a recent interview, Paul-André Calatayud, PhD, the representative of the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) in East Africa, said climate–health research in Africa is widely viewed as both urgent and promising.

According to Calatayud, experts stress the need for locally generated evidence and see major opportunities for African-led science to shape policy and strengthen climate-resilient health systems.

“The continent contributes little to global emissions yet faces severe climate-related health risks, such as shifting malaria patterns,” explains Calatayud.

Recently, Wellcome, an organisation that supports science-led projects in health, unveiled an ambitious project to fund three consortia in Eastern, Southern, and Western Africa. The organisation and its partners hope to address the public health crisis driven by climate change.

Despite this ambition, there are other regions in Africa that they are not able to reach.

According to Mercury Shitindo, Executive Director of the Africa Bioethics Network (ABN), climate-health challenges differ substantially across Southern, West, and East Africa in terms of hazard type, health system capacity, and community vulnerability.

“Regionally grounded consortia are far better positioned to generate relevant, actionable evidence than centralized models,” she explains.

ABN has completed a validation process for the Ethical Integration Framework for environmentally sustainable health research in Africa. According to the network, research ethics committee members, health researchers, policymakers, and cross-sector partners from East, West, Central, Southern, and North Africa reviewed 18 ethical principles and three implementation tools used in climate-health research.

Shitindo says researchers face ethical challenges: “As climate change intensifies across Africa, health researchers are increasingly navigating complex ethical questions that existing guidance does not fully address.”

ABN, supported by the World Health Organization, seeks to develop a framework for ethical health research conducted under environmental and climate pressures across Africa.

Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization has established its first climate-health desk in Niamey, Niger. It aims to help countries in Africa turn climate and weather information into practical, everyday health protection and action.

“Climate change is reshaping health risks across Africa, challenging countries to stay one step ahead. Our real opportunity lies in anticipation: Africa cannot afford to wait for emergencies to unfold,” says Ousmane Ndiaye, Director-General of the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development.

Shitindo notes that the climate-health ecosystem on the continent is active, adding that the  climate-health desk is an important initiative bringing climate intelligence directly to health authorities and decision-makers.

She also mentions other initiatives such as the Lancet Countdown, which has been building an African evidence base for climate-health impacts over several years; the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance’s advocacy work connecting science to climate justice policy processes; and national institutions across the continent, including KEMRI in Kenya, that are running climate-sensitive health studies with strong community engagement.

Despite increasing initiatives in climate-health, policymakers and the continent’s partners face an uphill task in addressing critical funding gaps and fragmentation, according to experts.

“Climate-health research and implementation require sustained investment in data infrastructure, workforce development, community interventions, and policy integration over many years,” said Calatayud.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control reported in its 2025 Climate-Health Strategy that a review of more than 2,000 public health events between 2001 and 2021 found that 56 percent were linked to climate change.

The Executive Director of ABN, says the central challenge climate-health faces is not a lack of activity, but fragmentation. “Initiatives are often doing excellent work in parallel without sufficient coordination, shared learning, or common frameworks for how the work should be done ethically and equitably,” she explains.