Signed in Addis Ababa and Geneva on July 22, the agreement addresses the complex intersection of disease transmission, climate displacement, and trade mobility across African Union member states building on a working relationship between the two organizations that dates back to their joint COVID-19 response. Strategic pillars of the accord **Enhanced point-of-entry surveillance.** The partnership will upgrade laboratory capacity, digital data-sharing systems, and early-warning screening at major land borders, maritime ports, and airport hubs, with the explicit goal of helping countries detect health threats earlier and coordinate responses across borders in something closer to real time. **Inclusive healthcare delivery.** A core plank of the agreement is ensuring migrants, refugees, and border communities are folded into national primary healthcare, routine immunization, and emergency outbreak response systems rather than treated as a population outside them a gap that has repeatedly shown up as a weak point in past outbreak responses across the continent. **Harmonized health data.** The two organizations will work to streamline real-time epidemiological reporting between neighboring health ministries, with an eye toward containing outbreaks through faster information-sharing rather than blunt instruments like trade blockades or border closures that carry heavy economic costs. Implementation will run through joint technical working groups covering disease surveillance, health workforce development, access to essential health services, climate and One Health issues, governance and policy, and resource mobilization with Africa CDC and IOM staff working side by side on each track rather than running parallel programs. Why this partnership, and why now The agreement lands at a moment when Africa CDC's own emergency response agenda is unusually full. The continent is currently managing the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the DRC and Uganda the same crisis driving the $518 million continental response plan Africa CDC and WHO launched with the Pandemic Fund in June alongside an active hantavirus situation and ongoing mpox response work across multiple regions. Population movement has been a recurring feature of all three: the Ebola outbreak has tracked mining-related migration and cross-border travel corridors linking the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan, while mpox response coordination last year specifically flagged cross-border cooperation gaps among a dozen African countries as a limiting factor. Dr. Jean Kaseya, Africa CDC's Director General, framed the agreement as part of the continent's broader Africa's Health Security and Sovereignty Agenda. "Health threats move across borders. Africa's response must move together," he said in the joint announcement. "This partnership strengthens our collective ability to anticipate risks, coordinate action and support Member States with stronger surveillance, preparedness and emergency response." Frantz Celestin, IOM's Regional Director for East, Horn and Southern Africa, framed the partnership around the same populations that migration and health responses have historically struggled to reach consistently. "Effective public health systems protect people wherever they live, work or move," Celestin said. "This partnership strengthens countries' capacity to prepare for health emergencies, improve cross-border collaboration and expand access to essential health services for migrants, displaced populations and border communities across Africa." The financing question The agreement also commits both organizations to supporting "sustainable financing" for future health emergency prevention and response language that, without further detail yet on funding mechanisms, signals the partnership is meant to be a standing platform rather than a one-off crisis response. Given how much of this year's emergency financing has flowed through mechanisms like the Pandemic Fund's emergency procedures, how this new agreement's financing ambitions translate into actual budget lines will be worth watching as the 2026–2028 timeline gets underway. Arozi Health Media will continue tracking implementation of the Africa CDC-IOM partnership as joint technical working groups begin their work in the coming months.