PAP, Partners for Patients Expand Health Partnership With 55 Model Law Proposals

NEW YORK, 24 September 2026 — The Pan-African Parliament and Partners for Patients NGO have expanded their partnership to support the development of health legislation and stronger health systems across Africa, with an ambitious work programme that includes 55 proposed model laws.

The addendum to their existing cooperation agreement was signed in New York by the President of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), H.E. Dr Fateh Boutbig, and the Founder and Board Chairwoman of Partners for Patients NGO, Dr Mimi Choon-Quinones.

The signing took place on the margins of the Global Peace Summit 2026, where Dr Boutbig received the Global Distinguished Leadership Award 2026.

The expanded partnership covers communicable and non-communicable diseases, maternal and child health, access to medicines, digital health, health financing and pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

It seeks to turn broad continental health priorities into parliamentary action through policy research, technical advice, legislative drafting, capacity-building, stakeholder consultations and resource mobilization.

Building on three years of cooperation

The latest agreement builds on cooperation between PAP and Partners for Patients NGO that began with a Memorandum of Understanding in 2023 and was followed by a Memorandum of Agreement and Technical Cooperation Plan in 2025.

In October 2025, the two institutions announced the Every African Everywhere Health Solidarity Strategy, known as EASY, as a framework for strengthening health systems, advancing health equity and expanding access to quality healthcare across the African Union’s 55 Member States and the African diaspora.

The strategy includes initiatives addressing cancer, clinical research, health-policy training, patient engagement and the development of African health professionals’ capacity.

PAP has also credited Partners for Patients with facilitating its engagement with the Gates Foundation and FP2030 during UNGA81. Those discussions explored possible cooperation on the health and well-being of women and girls, family planning and mobilization of investment in African health systems.

The new addendum widens the scope of this relationship and formalizes a more substantial role for Partners for Patients in supporting the work of PAP’s Committee on Health, Labour and Social Affairs.

What is Partners for Patients NGO?

Partners for Patients NGO, which operates as PFP.NGO, describes itself as a patient-advocacy organization focused on public-health diplomacy, health policy, equitable access to care and the inclusion of patients in decisions affecting their treatment and well-being.

According to the organization, it was established in 1990 by Dr Mimi Choon-Quinones in memory of her father, Tony L. Choon.

Its approach seeks to connect the experiences of patients, families and caregivers with the work of physicians, researchers, legislators, policymakers and healthcare partners. The objective is to ensure that health legislation and policy are informed by the practical barriers people face when seeking diagnosis, medicines, treatment and continuing care.

This patient-centred perspective is particularly relevant to parliamentary work. Health laws may appear technically sound but still fail to improve outcomes if they overlook affordability, distance from health facilities, shortages of medical professionals, weak supply chains, poor health information systems or the experiences of marginalized communities.

Partners for Patients says its work focuses on translating the lived experiences and unmet needs of patients and healthcare professionals into legislation, public policy and health diplomacy.

Its partnership with PAP creates a channel through which those experiences can inform continental parliamentary deliberations and proposed legislative standards.

An agenda of 55 proposed model laws

An annex to the addendum lists 55 proposed model-law titles identified by PAP’s Permanent Committee on Health, Labour and Social Affairs in partnership with PFP.NGO.

The proposed subjects span a wide range of health challenges, including cancer prevention and treatment, clinical trials, malaria elimination, vaccination, maternal and child health, access to medicines, health data, digital health, water and sanitation, pandemic preparedness and the management of non-communicable diseases.

The list provides a legislative work programme rather than a collection of completed or enacted laws.

Each proposal would still require research, consultation, drafting, legal review and consideration through the appropriate PAP processes. Relevant African Union institutions, national parliaments, health professionals, patient organizations, civil society and other stakeholders would also need to be consulted.

Agreement on a model-law title by a parliamentary committee should therefore not be confused with adoption by the Pan-African Parliament, approval by African Union policy organs or enactment by Member States.

That distinction is important because PAP currently exercises consultative and advisory powers. Its model laws do not automatically become binding national legislation.

Their practical value lies in providing African countries with adaptable legislative frameworks that can encourage common standards while allowing each national parliament to legislate in accordance with its constitution, legal system and public-health needs.

Why model health laws matter

Africa’s health systems operate under different national laws, regulatory structures and levels of institutional capacity. These differences can hinder coordinated responses to challenges that cross national borders.

Disease outbreaks, falsified medicines, health-worker migration, medical research, health-data transfers and pharmaceutical supply chains cannot always be addressed effectively within the boundaries of a single country.

Model laws can help establish shared principles and minimum standards. They can also reduce the time and technical cost involved when national parliaments begin drafting or updating legislation.

A model law on clinical trials, for example, could promote consistent protections for participants, ethical review standards, transparency and the inclusion of African populations in medical research.

A model law on health data could address privacy, cybersecurity, interoperability and African control over sensitive health information.

Proposals relating to cancer, malaria and other diseases could provide frameworks covering prevention, screening, early diagnosis, treatment, palliative care, research and sustainable financing.

Their impact, however, will depend on the quality of the drafting, the depth of consultation and the willingness of national parliaments to domesticate or adapt the resulting frameworks.

Technical support for PAP’s Health Committee

Under the expanded agreement, Partners for Patients will continue supporting the Health Committee through research, technical advice, legislative drafting and capacity-building.

The organization is also expected to assist with stakeholder engagement and resource mobilization.

This could enable the Committee to bring together parliamentarians, patients, physicians, nurses, researchers, universities, regulators, pharmaceutical manufacturers, development institutions and civil-society organizations.

Such engagement is necessary because effective health legislation must balance several interests: patient safety, affordability, scientific innovation, regulatory effectiveness, ethical medical research and equitable access to treatment.

Technical partners can provide valuable expertise, but the authority to determine PAP’s parliamentary priorities must remain with its Members and competent organs. Drafting processes should also be transparent, evidence-based and protected against conflicts of interest, particularly where commercial health-sector stakeholders participate.

Long-term strategic partnership through 2056

The addendum records PFP.NGO’s commitment to serve as PAP’s exclusive strategic technical partner for legislative and health-policy support at the continental parliamentary level through 2056, subject to periodic review and the terms of the agreement.

The provision is intended to give the partnership long-term continuity extending beyond changes in PAP’s political leadership.

It does not prevent PFP.NGO from working with national parliaments, other African Union institutions or additional health partners. Nor should it prevent PAP from consulting public institutions, independent experts, patient groups and other stakeholders when developing particular model laws.

Given the proposed duration, periodic review will be essential. PAP will need to assess performance, institutional value, accountability, compatibility with applicable AU rules and the continuing relevance of the arrangement.

Long-term cooperation can preserve institutional knowledge and allow complex health initiatives to mature. It must nevertheless be supported by measurable targets, transparent reporting and safeguards that protect the Parliament’s independence and decision-making authority.

From partnership documents to health outcomes

The signing gives PAP a wider framework for translating health priorities into parliamentary initiatives, but the decisive stage will be implementation.

The 55 proposed model laws will need to be prioritized. Attempting to develop them simultaneously could stretch the technical and financial capacity of the Health Committee and its partners.

A phased work programme could begin with issues of the greatest continental urgency and those for which sufficient research, stakeholder support and implementation pathways already exist.

Each model-law project should include:

                        i.         A clearly defined public-health problem;

                        ii.         An assessment of existing AU and national legal frameworks;

                       iii.         Consultations with patients, medical professionals and regulators;

                       iv.         Human-rights and gender-impact assessments;

                        v.         Sustainable financing and implementation provisions;

                        vi.         Independent legal and scientific review; and

                        vii.         A strategy for engagement with national and regional parliaments.

The partnership should also establish indicators for measuring progress beyond the number of meetings held or draft documents produced. The more important questions will be whether model laws are adopted, adapted by national legislatures, properly financed and ultimately reflected in improved access to healthcare.

Giving patients a place in health lawmaking

The most distinctive contribution Partners for Patients can make is ensuring that patients are treated as participants in health policymaking rather than merely as recipients of services.

People living with cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, infectious diseases, disabilities and other health conditions understand barriers to care in ways that institutional reports may not fully capture.

Their experiences can reveal the consequences of delayed diagnosis, unaffordable medicines, inadequate health insurance, weak referral systems and exclusion from clinical research.

By bringing those voices into parliamentary consultations, the partnership can help PAP develop legislative proposals that respond more directly to the realities faced by African families.

The expanded cooperation between PAP and PFP.NGO is therefore potentially significant. It combines the representative reach of a continental Parliament with the technical and patient-advocacy focus of a health organization.

Its credibility will depend on whether that combination produces transparent, carefully drafted and implementable legislative frameworks and whether those frameworks ultimately help African countries deliver safer, more equitable and more accessible healthcare.