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. 2025 Jul 7;5(1):278.
doi: 10.1038/s43856-025-00992-7.

Cancer Research Funding in Africa

Oluwasegun Afolaranmi  1 , Elise M Garton  2 , Olaoluwa Ezekiel Dada  3 , Sehar Salim Virani  4   5 , Abdul R Shour  6 , Adedayo A Onitilo  6 , Syed Nabeel Zafar  7
Affiliations

Cancer Research Funding in Africa

Oluwasegun Afolaranmi et al. Commun Med (Lond). .

Abstract

Background: Africa is projected to witness the steepest rise in cancer incidence and mortality in the coming decades. Therefore, it is critical to understand the current landscape of cancer research funding to identify key gaps and inform decision-making.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of funded cancer research projects involving at least one African country over the 20 years between January 2004 and December 2023. Data was collected from four publicly available databases, namely the International Cancer Research Partnership (ICRP), National Institutes of Health World Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools (WoRLD RePORT), ClinicalTrials.gov (CTG), and International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). We retrieved data on country, year of funding, cancer types, study types, and funding sources. Furthermore, we used incidence, mortality, and prevalence data to compare the level of funded projects to the burden of disease.

Results: A total of 3047 unique funded projects/grants were reported from all 4 databases, with a consistent rise in the number of funded projects throughout the study period. Egypt and South Africa had the most funded cancer research projects, and 9 (16%) countries had no reported studies. Breast, lung, and cervical cancers received the highest funding allocation. We found that several cancers, notably cervical, prostate, and liver, are relatively underfunded compared to their disease burden. 70% of projects reported in ICRP/WoRLD RePORT were funded by the U.S. NIH. Notably, 40% of studies in CTG/ICTRP reported local funding, with Egypt accounting for 94% of these locally financed studies.

Conclusions: This study provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of cancer research funding in Africa, highlighting notable gaps and critical insights to guide data-driven decision-making.

Plain language summary

The burden of cancer in Africa is rising sharply; therefore, it is crucial to study the distribution of cancer research funding on the continent to identify important gaps and guide decision-making. In this study, we reviewed 20 years of data from international research databases and identified which African countries and cancer types received funding and how this compared to the actual burden of disease. We found that although there is an increasing trend in cancer research funding in Africa, the funding landscape is unevenly distributed, as very few countries account for most of the funded projects. Moreover, cancers like cervical, prostate, and liver were underfunded relative to their impact. Most funding came from external sources, except in Egypt, with significant local support. These findings highlight the need for more equitable, needs-based cancer research investment in Africa.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Total number of studies and 5-year trends of funded cancer projects in African countries across all four databases.
a Total search results from each database through the 20-year study period are shown. Deduplication of overlapping projects between ICRP/World RePORT and between CTG/WHO ICTRP resulted in 3047 projects across all databases taken forward for subsequent analyses. b A 5-year trend in the number of cancer projects from all four databases between 2006 and 2020. ICRP International Cancer Research Partnership, WoRLD RePORT National Institutes of Health World Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools, CTG ClinicalTrials.gov, ICTRP World Health northwest rocOrganization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, N.B. The NIH World RePORT database only includes data from 2016 onwards.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Distribution of funded cancer projects across African subregions.
a Total funded studies (%) from all 4 databases per UN subregion, with b showing contributions from the different databases to each region. N.B. The sum of the numbers shown in A here (3611) is more than the total number of studies in Fig. 1a (3047), as some studies involve multiple countries cutting across different subregions.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Country-specific distribution of funded cancer studies.
Total number of funded cancer projects for individual African countries, grouped by UN subregions.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. Funded research projects by study types.
a CTG and WHO ICTRP reported studies classified as observational or interventional. b ICRP reported projects categorized into research, clinical trials, or training studies. c Percentage (relevance) of ICRP reported projects classified according to the Common Scientific Outline (CSO). d A 5-yearly tracking of the percentage relevance of each ICRP CSO sub-category between 2006 and 2020. N.B. Individual studies in ICRP may fall under multiple study types/classifications.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5. Funding sources for cancer research projects in Africa.
a ICRP and NIH World RePORT funding sources. US NIH-funded studies zoomed out to show contributions from different agencies. b CTG and WHO ICTRP funding sources. Locally funded studies zoomed out to show country-specific contributions. US NIH United States National Institutes of Health, NCI National Cancer Institute, NIAID National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6. Correlation between funded cancer types and incidence/mortality rates.
Total number of funded studies per cancer type (green bars), plotted against incidence (blue dots) and mortality (red dots) data for each cancer type. Incidence and mortality data are derived from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Global Cancer Observatory (GLOBOCAN) 2022 data.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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