By The Respondent Reporter
Each year, October in Dar es Salaam brings with it a pulse—a sense of momentum that stretches beyond the bustling city streets and into the heart of Africa’s healthcare ambitions. This year, that pulse beats louder than ever as the 12th Tanzania Health Summit (THS 2025) returns, once again calling on the minds and hearts of over 2,500 participants from across the continent and beyond.
Held at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre from October 1st to 3rd, the summit is poised to spark critical dialogue around the future of healthcare in Africa. But it’s not just another event. It’s a deeply rooted movement—a moment of collective reckoning where innovation meets urgency, and where data and technology aren’t just buzzwords, but lifelines.
At the center of this convergence lies a shared belief that smarter, more responsive health systems are possible—and necessary. In Tanzania, that belief is becoming a lived reality. You feel it in the stories shared by community health workers from rural Singida who, armed with tablets and mobile health apps, can now identify high-risk pregnancies before it’s too late.
You see it in the dashboards lit up in regional health offices, where real-time surveillance tracks outbreaks with a precision that would’ve been unthinkable a decade ago. You hear it in the passion of leaders like Dr. Omary Chillo, President of the Tanzania Health Summit, who doesn’t mince words when he says, “We can’t achieve Universal Health Coverage without knowing who is being left behind. Data is the foundation, and technology is the tool. The 12th THS is about connecting both to action.”
This year’s theme, “Harnessing Data Utilization and Technologies to Accelerate Universal Health Coverage,” isn’t simply timely—it’s necessary. In a region where healthcare systems have often been fragmented and reactive, digital transformation offers a beacon of hope. But beyond hope, it offers strategy. It offers evidence. And most importantly, it offers a path forward.
Dr. Sunday Dominic, Maternal and Reproductive Health Expert at the Ministry of Health and President of the Association of Gynecology and Obstetricians of Tanzania (AGOTA), reflects on how far the country has come in using data to inform policy. “When I began working on maternal health in the late 2000s, it felt like we were constantly playing catch-up with the number of deaths every year. However, thanks to robust surveillance systems and the digitization of health records, we are now seeing targeted interventions that are effective. We’re not just counting the dead—we’re saving the living.”
His words echo the broader sentiment that THS 2025 is not just an event, but a showcase of transformation through perseverance and partnership.
The numbers speak volumes. Tanzania has managed to cut maternal mortality from 556 to 104 deaths per 100,000 live births between 2016 and 2022—a staggering 80% drop. Under-five mortality now stands at 39 per 1,000 live births.
Behind these numbers are mothers returning home safely, children celebrating fifth birthdays that once seemed uncertain, and leaders like Dolorosa Duncan, the m-mama Regional Director, who credits part of this progress to improved national referral and emergency transportation systems powered by mobile platforms like m-mama to increase accessibility of healthcare in rural areas with more than 160,000 mothers and newborns transported and served around 6000 lives.
“The power of simple tools in saving lives is underappreciated,” he notes. “It’s not just about fancy software. Sometimes, it’s a nurse in a rural clinic sending a photo of a complicated case to a specialist in the city. That’s impact.”
Indeed, that low-tech, high-impact ethos runs through many of the initiatives that will take center stage at this year’s summit. Telemedicine, electronic Community Health Information Systems, and AI-assisted diagnostics are not abstract future solutions—they are happening now, and they are redefining what it means to access care, particularly in underserved regions.
Kenya’s recent progress with its eCHIS system, which contributed to a 50% drop in under-five mortality over two decades, will offer important lessons. The country’s recently enacted Digital Health Act has also stirred conversations about governance, ethics, and workforce readiness—conversations that THS 2025 aims to advance with nuance and practical guidance.
Dr. Ntuli Kapologwe, a leading health policy advocate and the Director General of East and Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) in East Africa, believes that these regional examples should push Tanzania and its neighbors to think bigger. “We’ve seen what works in silos. Now we need to think about scale and sustainability.
The challenge isn’t just introducing new technology—it’s embedding it into systems that last.” He points to the Africa CDC’s Continental Health Data Governance Framework as a step toward regional harmonization, one that THS 2025 is expected to engage with robustly. “We’re entering a new era of health diplomacy,” he says. “And it starts with data we can trust.”
But no conversation on data and digital health is complete without addressing ethics—an area where both excitement and caution intersect. AI may help predict outbreaks and assist in diagnoses, but what happens when data privacy isn’t guaranteed, or when algorithms are built without input from the very communities they’re meant to serve? THS 2025 doesn’t shy away from these questions.
Panelists are expected to confront them head-on, examining models from countries like Rwanda and South Africa, while also drawing inspiration from global summits such as the World Health Summit in Berlin and the Global Digital Health Forum in Washington, D.C.
These platforms have paved the way for evidence-based dialogue, but what makes THS unique is its groundedness in the African experience—a clarity of purpose rooted not in theory, but in lived challenges.
Ms. Marsha Macatta-Yambi, who is a Scientific and Regulatory Affairs Manager at Nestle Equatorial Africa and the Chief Judge for CHIA Innovation Awards at THS, highlights another layer to the conversation: youth engagement. “We’re seeing a generation of digital natives in Tanzania who are hungry to innovate. The summit offers them a place at the table—not just to listen, but to lead.”
That sentiment was already evident at the 11th THS in Zanzibar, where young health entrepreneurs and university researchers captivated audiences with demos of mobile diagnostic kits, AI-powered decision-support tools, and low-cost wearable monitors. This year’s edition is expected to elevate those voices even further.
Valentine Simon, the Corporate Relations and Marketing Officer for the Tanzania Health Summit, has been instrumental in amplifying this youth-driven narrative. Through digital campaigns across Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, she’s helped position the summit not only as a space for policy exchange but also as a creative engine where ideas move fast and dreams are built.
“We’re trying to tell a different kind of health story,” she says. “One that reflects hope, resilience, and local ingenuity.”
And while optimism fuels the summit, there is also a sober awareness of the challenges that remain. Only 28% of Africans have access to essential sexual and reproductive health services. Nearly 70% of global maternal deaths still occur on the continent.
Without meaningful financing, improved insurance coverage, and a commitment to quality improvement—like that offered by THS’s new partnership with SafeCare—progress can stall. That’s why the summit isn’t just about talking. It’s about doing.
Dr. Ntuli Kapologwe emphasizes commitment. “At THS, we expect concrete outcomes—pledges from governments to integrate tech into primary care, commitments from investors to fund digital startups, and frameworks that empower communities, not just institutions.”
From climate-linked health vulnerabilities to the economic viability of telehealth models, the agenda is packed but focused. It’s a meeting of minds—but also of mission.
And so, as Dar es Salaam prepares to welcome delegates from over 25 countries, the air is thick not just with coastal humidity, but with anticipation. THS 2025 isn’t promising easy answers. But it is offering a platform to ask better questions—questions informed by data, inspired by innovation, and grounded in the human stories that make healthcare worth fighting for.
The Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre will hold more than just conversations this October. It will hold commitments, collaborations, and perhaps most importantly, the collective will to reimagine healthcare across Africa—not someday, but now.