Children with hearing loss who happen to reside in Africa deserve the chance to develop according to their potential as much as their peers living in more affluent regions. This leaves a moral obligation to pursue ways of initiating, developing,and growing early hearing detection and intervention services in Africa. For these reasons, the first EHDI Africa international conference was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2007 (13–14 August). The theme was ‘Building bridges in Africa: Early childhood development for children with hearing loss’. This special issue contains several reports from the EHDI Africa conference.