Zambia has signed a US$2 billion agreement to build a Medical City in Lusaka, a project Government says will make the country southern Africa’s centre of excellence in health tourism. Health Minister Professor Roma Chilengi signed the Memorandum of Understanding with DIHAD Sustainable Project Management L.L.C at the UAE-Zambia Business Forum in Abu Dhabi, in a ceremony officiated by President Hakainde Hichilema. Eng. Khaled Al Attar signed on behalf of DIHAD. The Medical City will be located in Lusaka’s Airport City and will combine specialist hospital care, medical training, hospitality and commercial space in a single development.

“For years, Zambians have travelled abroad for complex treatment at great cost to families and Government. The Medical City will reverse that flow, keeping our patients at home and drawing patients from across the region,” Prof. Chilengi said.

At the heart of the project are two national centres that answer some of the country’s most pressing clinical needs. A National Paediatric Cardiac Centre will treat children with heart conditions, while a National Renal Transplant and Kidney Disease Centre will offer dialysis and transplant care on home soil. The Medical City will also expand on Zambia’s existing radiotherapy services with broader oncology, cancer diagnostics and research. Other specialties planned include robotic surgery, neurosurgery, orthopaedics, maternal and child health, and rehabilitation.

Training sits alongside treatment in the plan. The development will include a hospital, a university and a school dedicated to producing the next generation of Zambian medical specialists. Government has said the hospital and training hub will be built first so that citizens begin to benefit as early as possible. That sequencing matters in a health system that has long relied on referrals abroad for advanced procedures and on foreign-trained consultants to fill specialist posts.

Around the clinical core, the Medical City is designed as a self-contained district. Plans include a convention centre, an auditorium and an outdoor theatre, as well as three, four and five-star hotels and hotel apartments. Offices, shops, wellness and sports facilities, parks and residential homes complete the design. The mix is meant to cater not only to patients but to the families who travel with them, the medical professionals who work there and the visitors drawn by conferences and events.

Government has tied the project directly to the Grow Zambia Agenda and its target of five million tourist arrivals. Health tourists and their families are expected to fill hotels and spend in the local economy during treatment and recovery. The project is also expected to attract foreign investment and create jobs across construction, healthcare and hospitality. If delivered as planned, it would put Lusaka in competition with established regional medical destinations and give Zambia a new source of foreign exchange.

“This project directly supports the Grow Zambia Agenda and its target of five million tourist arrivals,” the Minister said.

Under the agreement, DIHAD will work with a multi-sectoral Government team on the planning, design and management of the Medical City. Together, the two sides will identify and select the partners and investors who will finance and build it. Eng. Al Attar is Director-General of the DIHAD Sustainable Humanitarian Organisation, which coordinates the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid and Development Conference and Exhibition. The agreement gives DIHAD a project management role rather than making it the sole funder.

The Ministry has stressed that the MoU carries no financial commitment for Government. That structure places the burden of raising the US$2 billion on the investors DIHAD and Government bring on board, and the project’s pace will depend on how quickly that capital is secured. In the meantime, DIHAD will help Zambian patients access treatment in the UAE through competitively priced packages. For families facing costly referrals now, that bridging arrangement may prove the most immediate benefit of the deal.

The signing was one of several agreements concluded at the Abu Dhabi forum as Government pushes to convert its growing ties with the UAE into investment on the ground. For the health sector, the Medical City is the most ambitious of those commitments. Its success will be measured by how soon the first patients are treated in Lusaka rather than abroad.

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