About
A modelling movement
for African health decisions.
Africa Modelling Bridge convenes African Ministries of Health and African universities around the models that decide where scarce resources go — and that governments use to make the case for funding. It is led by a modeller who has worked on both sides of that table, and built to outlast any single project.
In one line
A movement that puts modelling at the centre of how African governments spend scarce health resources — and how they justify the ask for more. Malaria is the worked entry-point; the lens is sector-agnostic.
Mission
Bridge the room and the model.
African ministries already produce most of the data, analysis and strategy worth modelling. African universities already train the modellers who could work with it. What is missing is the connective tissue — the dossier on a ministry's desk that says here is the question, here is the dataset, here is the supervisor, here is a researcher who can hold it for six months. AMB is that connective tissue.
We take publicly available material — strategic plans, surveillance bulletins, programme reports, HMIS summaries — and route the questions it raises to BSc, MSc and PhD students across the continent. Each match becomes a concept note, a supervisor, a budget ask, and an output deposited under an open licence with a DOI. The student earns a real CV line; the ministry receives a useful answer; the funder sees the path from money to evidence in days, not months.
The lens is sector-agnostic — health systems, surveillance, NCDs, climate-and-health, vaccine delivery — with malaria as the v0.0 worked entry-point because that is where the founder's networks are deepest. Country pilots run in Tanzania, Malawi and DRC.
Why this · why now
The funding floor moved.
The work didn't stop.
Development Assistance for Health fell 21% in 2024–25 — the steepest single-year drop in fifteen years. Sub-Saharan Africa absorbed roughly a quarter of that cut. A platform that routes already-public information to already-trained African researchers does more with less by design — and the time to stand it up is now, while ministries are reconfiguring portfolios in real time.
DAH global
−21%
2024 → 2025. Steepest annual fall in 15 years.
Sub-Saharan
−25%
Disproportionate share of the cut, on the most malaria-burdened sub-region.
Time horizon
15y
Funding floor at its lowest point since 2010.
Ethos
Lunch for Democracy.
The deliberative-dialogue method Lesley-Anne Long contributes to AMB. It shapes how we run every session — and, quietly, how the rest of the platform is built.
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Small rooms.
Six to twelve people. Enough for difference; few enough that everyone speaks.
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Shared meals.
The table changes the conversation. Food slows the cadence, levels the room.
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No rank.
A minister, a master's student and a working-modeller speak as equals for the duration.
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No exclusion.
Invitation extends to the people closest to the work, not only those with seniority.
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Active listening.
Reflect before you respond. The session record captures the room, not the loudest voice.
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Respectful disagreement.
Hard questions, soft hands. Disagreement is the point, not the failure mode.
Openness pledge
Six commitments we will not relax.
A bridge can only do its job if both sides trust it. These commitments hold from v0.0 onward — they are not aspirational, they are the floor.
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01
Already-public source material
Every document we index is already in the public domain — ministry strategic plans, surveillance bulletins, programme reports, HMIS summaries, climate-and-health briefs.
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02
Open outputs with a DOI
Working papers, methods notes and briefs are deposited to Zenodo with a DOI. Text is CC-BY, code is MIT — no walled gardens.
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03
Edits via public pull request
Every change to the platform is a public commit. The git history is the audit trail. Editors review every PR before merge.
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04
Take-down honoured within 5 business days
Even though indexed material is already public, we honour any ministry take-down request inside one working week — and the public log records each one.
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05
No third-party trackers
Privacy-respecting analytics only. No advertising pixels, no behavioural retargeting, no third-party cookies.
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06
AI drafts labelled, editors review
AI-generated drafts are labelled where they appear. A human editor signs off before anything is published under the AMB name.
Read on
Three more ways into the work.
Who is doing this
Team
Lead consultant, senior adviser, country anchors, and the pro-bono working-modeller network.
OpenHow it is built
Governance
Module-by-module status board, editorial workflow, take-down policy, public token-spend.
OpenWhat we actually do
Approach
The three-layer method — dialogue, dossiers, build-ready research packages.
Open