The Irish contribution to the development of palliative care in Africa – and shared learnings

Ireland is a small country of 5million people, but we have a big commitment to palliative care in Africa, with Irish contributions into over 20 palliative care initiatives across the continent (see map above).

However, despite the best efforts of advocates, 90% of Africans still have no access to palliative care. That’s a stark number that makes the challenge clear – but with the combined efforts of passionate advocates and the tools and techniques of the modern world, it is within our means to change this.

I was delighted to have been invited to speak at the African Palliative Care Conference in Botswana in September 2025 about Ireland’s contribution to palliative care development in Africa, because it gave me the opportunity to do a piece of research that has not been done before – to pull together a comprehensive picture of Ireland’s palliative care projects in Africa over the past 25 years.

Presenting the results of this research to the APCA conference in Botswana.

With Thobekile Finger Chair , Eve Namisango, CEO Designate and Dr Dr Emmanuel Luyirika outgoing CEO of African Palliative Care Association after presentation.

Building upon this research I am delighted that the Irish Global Health Network invited me to moderate a webinar on 'Strengthening Irish African Partnerships in Palliative Care'. The webinar allowed us to discuss the major gaps in palliative care in Africa as well as the seeds of hope offered by a number of Irish African partnerships doing trojan work. We explored how we can learn from each other, and how we can amplify our impact without necessarily investing more money.

We had a brilliant line up including Eve Namisango, Miriam Donohoe, Trish Scanlan, Dr Balwani Chingatichifwe Mbakaya (PhD) Mbakaya, Dr Trevor Corrigan, Sr Anita Hubrich and Caragh Munn. One of the biggest challenges in the webinar was managing time with the level of enthusiasm, experience, commitment and ideas in the room. Already the webinar has delivered some valuable ideas and connections..... hopefully this is just the beginning.
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Thanks to all who attended, to Irish Global Health Network and African Palliative Care Association for hosting. You can watch it back here.