NAIROBI, Kenya — Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale on Tuesday hosted Saad bin Abdullah Alnofaia for bilateral talks aimed at deepening cooperation between Kenya and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in healthcare development, innovation, and investment.
The meeting focused on expanding collaboration beyond labour mobility into long-term partnerships in health systems strengthening, technology transfer, medical innovation, and healthcare financing.
According to Duale, the discussions reaffirmed the longstanding diplomatic and development ties between Kenya and Saudi Arabia, particularly in advancing healthcare and human development priorities.
“Our discussions focused on advancing a more structured and long-term health partnership beyond workforce mobility to include institutional collaboration, skills transfer, technology exchange, and investment in resilient healthcare systems,” Duale said.
The Health CS briefed the Saudi envoy on Kenya’s ongoing reforms under the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programme, including the rollout of the Social Health Authority, which replaced the defunct National Health Insurance Fund as part of efforts to expand equitable access to affordable healthcare.
Duale said the two sides explored opportunities for collaboration in digital health systems, artificial intelligence-powered diagnostics, health financing models, oncology treatment, pharmaceutical production, vaccine manufacturing, and medical technologies.
The discussions also touched on strengthening epidemic preparedness and regional health security through improved laboratory systems, genomic surveillance, and emergency response mechanisms.
Kenya has increasingly positioned itself as a regional healthcare and pharmaceutical manufacturing hub under the government’s broader health sector transformation agenda and the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA).
The Ministry of Health has in recent months pursued partnerships with foreign governments, multilateral agencies, and private investors to support local manufacturing of medicines and vaccines, reduce import dependency, and strengthen health infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia has remained one of Kenya’s key strategic partners in trade, labour exports, infrastructure financing, energy cooperation, and religious pilgrimage facilitation.
Duale said Kenya remained committed to building impactful partnerships with Saudi Arabia that support sustainable healthcare transformation and improve service delivery for citizens.
