Addis Ababa – Morocco is convinced that the African Medicines Agency (AMA) will play a key role in improving the capacities of African countries and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to regulate medical products and reiterates its call to share with Africa its experience and know-how for a dynamic and growing South-South cooperation, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates Mr. Nasser Bourita, said Thursday 3 February 2022.
In his remarks on the progress report on the ratification of the treaty establishing the AMA, at the 40th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the African Union, Bourita noted that Morocco is convinced that the AMA will play a key role in improving the capacity of African countries and RECs to regulate medical products in order to improve access to effective medical products and facilitate the harmonization of medicines regulation to achieve internationally acceptable standards.
Morocco, under the High Royal Orientations, reiterates its call to share with Africa its experience and know-how for a dynamic and growing South-South cooperation in all areas, including health, especially the pharmaceutical sector, and is willing to host the headquarters of the AMA and develop South-South partnership projects with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Bourita stressed.
The performance of the Moroccan pharmaceutical industry, which covers more than 65% of national needs, with 10% of the overall volume of production dedicated to export to African countries, Europe, Scandinavia and the Gulf countries, will promote the deployment by the Kingdom, regionally and continentally, of its expertise and know-how in the quality of production of medicines, he underlined.
Aware of the urgency of finding a concrete, sustainable and final solution to these problems, Morocco supports the creation and operationalization of the AMA considered as an “imperative need for our continent to contribute to the improvement of the regulation of medicines and the quality of medical products”, the minister said.
The AMA also provides a favorable regulatory environment for pharmaceutical research and development, and will strengthen coordination between African countries for a protection of public health against the risks associated with the use of low-quality medicines, he added.
In addition, Bourita noted that Morocco is ready and willing to accompany the Agency in all its operationalization processes and will support the AMA Conference of States Parties, scheduled for the 2nd quarter of 2022, for the immediate operationalization of the African Medicines Agency.
The Executive Council of the African Union continued Thursday its 40th ordinary session, at the headquarters of the pan-African organization in Addis Ababa, with the participation of Morocco.
