GO₂AL’s Community of Practice Roundtable

On 20 May 2025, alongside the 78^th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, the Access to Medicine Foundation hosted the second Global Oxygen Alliance’s Industry Community of Practice Roundtable, which was funded and co-moderated by Unitaid. Key takeaways from the event – which focused on solutions that can accelerate efforts to expand and sustain access to medical oxygen in low- and middle-income countries – are available in a meeting report, now available for download.

The Global Oxygen Alliance’s (GO₂AL’s) Community of Practice (CoP) is a collaborative platform facilitated by the Access to Medicine Foundation on behalf of GO₂AL to unite key stakeholders from the medical oxygen sector, aiming to improve access to medical oxygen in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

In a significant step toward strengthening global collaboration on oxygen access, the Foundation hosted a second roundtable, as part of its broader CoP initiative, on the sidelines of the 78^th World Health Assembly. This event brought together leading voices from 31 organisations across sectors – including leaders from the medical gas industry, members of GO₂AL and NGOs – to track industry progress and commitments to oxygen access, explore partnerships and assess energy-efficient technologies.

This highly interactive session was marked by engaged dialogue, willingness to collaborate and open discussion of the challenges and needs the oxygen industry is facing in expanding access.

The oxygen industry is critical to closing the global oxygen access gap. The demand across the world for Medical Oxygen is substantial and the commitment we are seeing from industry is exciting. We look forward to working with the GO2AL Community of Practice to overcome access barriers to oxygen markets, ensuring no one in need is denied this life saving treatment.
Robert Matiru, Co-Chair, Global Oxygen Alliance, and Director of Programme, Unitaid

Key takeaways from the report

Ethiopia’s journey to better oxygen access: Ethiopia’s five-year oxygen implementation strategy boosted oxygen access tenfold. Thousands of clinicians and biomedical engineers have been trained and 59 oxygen plants are operational, with 24 more on the way.
East Africa Programme on Oxygen Access: This initiative engages governments, funders, and private partners across Kenya and Tanzania to support air separation unit (ASU) expansion. The programme aims to cut medical oxygen costs by 25–30% while enhancing long-term public-private coordination. Read more about this initiative here and here.
Solar electrification: The Clinton Health Access Initiative’s (CHAI’s) solar financing initiative aims to electrify 500+ health facilities in Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, and South Africa over the next 2.5 years, improving reliability and reducing oxygen production costs. Read more about this initiative here.
Identified needs from oxygen industry stakeholders to improve oxygen access: The group stressed the need for expanded training programmes, reliable maintenance and spare parts access; simplified and harmonised regulatory frameworks; reliable data on national oxygen strategies and resource mapping; and better-coordinated collaboration with clear role distribution, local alignment and shared accountability across public and private actors.

This community is our chance to move from analysis to action, so the oxygen industry can make a real impact on access. By 2026, we want to be able to point to real-world progress—not just talk, but tangible commitments and results.
Jayasree K. Iyer, CEO, Access to Medicine Foundation

Looking ahead: Effective collaboration is paramount

The roundtable discussion highlighted the need for country-level, bottom-up approaches while aligning efforts and improving coordination among stakeholders to support sustainable, country-led solutions. Therefore, the CoP will begin mapping oxygen ecosystems in selected LMICs to assess their oxygen production and distribution capacity, identify key stakeholders and pinpoint critical gaps. Survey data collected from CoP members, covering operational reach, services provided and other key metrics will be compared against these gaps to determine where the strengths of oxygen stakeholders align with country-specific needs. These early steps will lay the foundation for a long-term strategic roadmap focused on country-level action and sustainable impact in oxygen access.