African leaders call for unity to meet future pandemic challenges
By Winnie Cirino
DAKAR, SENEGAL: Dec 07, 2021:
Some African leaders have called on leaders in the African continent to work together to build resilience and improve the health sector so as to be ready for any future pandemic in the continent.
More than 1,000 people from different African countries and peace actors from international communities have gathered in Dakar, Senegal to attend the Dakar International Conference, aimed at diagnosing the situation in Africa in order to contribute to the search for solutions to the ills affecting the continent.
The two days’ forum is held under the theme “the issues of stability and emergence in Africa in a post covid 19 world.”
Macky Sall, President of Senegal says African leaders, senior officials, civilians and military experts always participate in the forum to safeguard the continent’s peace and security through mutual primary responsibilities.
“No country can face environmental and health perils, organized crime, piracy and cybercrime alone; these, and others, are all cross-border challenges.”
National responsibility, international solidarity and collective security mean that peace and security in Africa are integral to world peace and security, says Sall.
“We must, therefore, continue to identify the internal and external causes of conflicts on the continent and assess the effectiveness of national responses, peace operations and other mechanisms for the peaceful resolution of disputes.” Sall Said.
While the Covid 19 situation is improving in some parts of the world, the appearance of the new variant in several countries indicates that everyone is exposed to the virus and that the African continent is not yet in the post- Covid era.
The pandemic has dealt a severe blow to the economic growth and emergence efforts of the continent, leading to a drastic drop in revenue and unexpected increase in spending on health and social-economic resilience, something President Sall says has aggravated the budget deficit of the continent, since it does not have a monetary and financial instruments to mitigate the impact of the crisis, as central banks of developed countries do.
Sall wants Africa to be resilient, determined and combative amidst adverse effects of a dual health and economic crisis.
“We need to rethink global economic governance to favor the conditions for financing Africa’s emergence”
Relax OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] rules for export credit loans, and lengthen maturity dates for financing development infrastructure projects; correct the rules for assessing investment risk in Africa, since the perception of risk is still higher than the actual risk, which increases insurance premiums and reduces the competitiveness of our economies; further promote blended financing, combining concessional and commercial financing.
Sall notes that there is need to lighten and simplify the procedures for examining project financing files, while respecting the rules of transparency, and also to ensure a fair and equitable energy transition, according to the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, and improve the rules of the international tax system, so that taxes are paid where the wealth is created, that is to say, in the country where a company operates and makes its profits.
The South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa says if Africa as a continent does not deal with the after effect of the Covid 19 pandemic, then that will impact negatively on the peace and security of the continent.
“We need to invest substantially more in strengthening health systems on our continent and in building resilience and future health emergencies,” says Ramaphosa who charged African leaders to figure out a way forward so that the African Continent of Africa can foster its own health processes and systems to withstand future Pandemics.
“We need to drive innovative and sustainable economic strategies that not only enable recovery from the pandemic but also advance industrialization and economic integration objectives of the African Union and agenda 2063.” Ramaphosa says, noting that many African countries have become fiscally constrained due to increased expenditure to mitigate the impact of Covid 19.
Lockdowns, job losses, and business closures have also had impacts on the tourism focus economy of many countries. And now with the continent expecting an increase by 3.4 percent in 2021 and 4 percent in 2022, Ramaphosa says there is much more that needs to be done to achieve goals as a continent.
“Africa has to be resilient in a descending global crisis of this nature and we have the resources and the collective skills that are needed for economic and social emergency. We must depend on trade and investment between African countries. The Africa free trade continental area will be a big enabler in this regard.”
“Our focus must be in job creation, supporting and growing African businesses and creating a favorable climate for investment in all our countries.” Says Ramaphosa emphasizing that Africa must focus on meeting sustainable development goals especially on universal health care and eradication of poverty, and economic growth.
From the world’s population, the African continent has a very small fraction of its population vaccinated, something that Ramaphosa says there is more need to strengthen measures towards self-reliance as the African continent especially when it comes to access to vaccines.
“Vaccine nationalism and inequitable access has resulted in less than 7 percent of the continent’s population being vaccinated today. What continues to disadvantage us is that our lockup vaccine manufacturing capability covers only 1 percent of the vaccines needed in the continent. We are optimistic that the partnership with African Vaccine manufacturing launched earlier this year will help us to achieve a goal of increasing vaccine manufacturing to more than 60 percent by 2020,” says Ramaphosa.
So far African countries like South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, Rwanda have the capability to manufacture vaccines. Ramaphosa says they should be allowed to do so.
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