This gathering brought together over 140 key stakeholders, including policymakers, researchers, healthcare leaders, and advocates from all countries in the West African sub-region, all committed to advancing regional collaboration and coordination to boost epidemic preparedness and impactful clinical research.

The workshop was designed to map out capacities and infrastructure, identify challenges, gaps and opportunities in West Africa's clinical trial research landscape. It facilitated open consultations with stakeholders on how to strengthen preparedness for clinical research. Participants discussed a plan to map out the region's research ecosystem looking at ways to strengthen cross-border collaboration. The mapping highlighted essential stakeholders, infrastructure, existing networks, capabilities, strengths, and lessons. The meeting was critically intended to lead to the development of actionable plans with clear timelines and deliverables.

Professor Ed Clarke, Vaccines and Immunity Theme Lead, MRCG at LSHTM, said: “The time for talking is over.  With the insights gained from work leading up to this meeting, our engagement in Accra and in close collaboration with Africa CDC, WAHO and our colleagues at IVI, we now aim to finalise an engagement plan with countries across West Africa to effectively understand existing strengths as well as areas in which additional investment including in personnel and infrastructure, is needed in order to respond effectively to future pandemic threats.”

The workshop provided an opportunity to explore collaborative efforts to co-create an actionable roadmap for sustainable capacity development across West Africa. It concluded with a commitment to harmonise the region’s research capabilities, to build an ecosystem that is responsive and tailored to the needs of the continent and in line with CEPI’s100-day mission, which is a global health security plan to be able to develop and make available new vaccines against a future pathogen with pandemic potential, within 100 days of that pandemic threat being recognised.