The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has issued a call for expressions of interest in support for innovative projects for the production of COVID-19-relevant medical and pharmaceutical products.

This is part of the Joint Action Support towards Industrialisation and the Productive Sectors, which is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.  It is co-funded by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, and is being implemented in cooperation with the SADC Secretariat.

The objective of the call is to scale up the manufacturing of high-quality and affordable COVID-19-relevant medical and pharmaceutical products in the SADC region – decreasing import dependency, building regional resilience to future disease outbreaks and improving local public health outcomes. Most importantly, facilitating improved access to COVID-19-relevant medical and pharmaceutical products will enhance measures by the governments of SADC member states to curb COVID-19 transmission and support socio-economic recovery in the region.

South African private and public sector companies/institutions are eligible to apply. The closing date is Monday, 25 April 2022.

Details and application forms are available at: https://www.sadc.int/opportunities/procurement/open-procurement-opportunities/production-covid-19-relevant-medical-and-pharmaceutical-products/.