African Medicines Agency Liaison Office
Established in FY25, the FDA African Medicines Agency Liaison Office, or AMALO, managed by the Office of Global Policy and Strategy, is focused on supporting the work of the African Medicines Agency (AMA) in order to advance U.S. health, economic, and security interests by strengthening regulatory systems on the continent to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, promote safe and effective medical products, and create stable, high-quality markets for U.S. innovation and investment. By building trusted regulatory partnerships and aligning standards, the FDA ensures that medical products entering the U.S. are safe.
When fully staffed at the U.S. Embassy in Kigali, AMALO will include a director and locally employed policy and administrative staff working closely with FDA staff at headquarters to engage at the national, regional, and continental level to enable effective regulation of medical products in Africa.
What We Do
As the foundation for supporting U.S. interests in Africa, AMALO’s work is focused on advancing regulatory alignment across the region, as well as outreach to support the AMA and related regulatory activities of regional and national African authorities and the capacities of medical product developers and manufacturers in Africa.
AMALO works closely with the AMA and other African regulators and collaborates with other components of the United States Government, other governments, and non-governmental entities from around the world that engage on issues in Africa.
Promoting regulatory harmonization and convergence among African regulators is a key focus of AMALO. AMALO does this by supporting African regulators coordinated regulatory policy development and implementation, as well as encouraging their participation in global guideline and standard-setting bodies and adoption of the guidelines and standards that these bodies produce.
AMALO directly engages on regulatory concepts and considerations at the policy and technical level with regulatory counterparts, industry sectors, academia, and nongovernmental organizations. Additionally, AMALO staff attend, present at, and occasionally organize conferences, workshops, and meetings to advance U.S. priorities through face-to-face activities.
Contact:
Meisha Sampson, Director
U.S. Embassy
30 KG 7 Avenue
Kigali, Rwanda
Office: (+250) 252-596-708-2708
Mobile: 1-317-260-5807
Email: us-fda-amalo@fda.hhs.gov
Additional Reading:
African Union Development Agency – AUDA-NEPAD homepage
African Union Development Agency – About