President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, has reiterated the need for Africa to build a defence mechanism against external shocks, especially in health care and financial security.
Speaking at the opening of the 35th African Union Assembly in Ethiopia, the AfDB chief urged African leaders to invest more in health as it means ‘investing in national security’.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned in December 2021 that more Covid-19 waves could be building for Africa as updated forecasts showed that the continent may not reach 70 percent vaccine coverage until August 2024.
The UN entity gave the warning after the continent experienced an 83 percent surge in new Covid-19 cases driven by the Delta and the Omicron variants.
Development Diaries understands that only six African countries hit the year-end (2021) target of fully vaccinating 40 percent of their population as set by the global health body.
‘Africa cannot afford to outsource the health care security of its 1.4 billion citizens to the benevolence of others’, Adesina said.
He said that the continent needed U.S.$484 billion over the next three years to address the socio-economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and support economic recovery.
Adesina outlined three strategic priorities for an African health care defense system: building quality health care infrastructure; developing the continent’s pharmaceutical industry; and increasing the capacity of vaccine manufacturing.
Speaking about other critical areas for the continent, such as managing debt, Adesina said: ‘Africa’s public debt, currently estimated at $546 billion, represents one-quarter of the continent’s GDP and is higher than the combined total annual government revenues of $501 billion’.
He also said that the bank’s concessional lending arm, African Development Fund, had supported low-income countries with $8.5 billion over the last five years.
Adesina reminded African leaders that they had asked for re-allocated IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to be channeled through the AfDB, a prescribed holder of SDRs.
‘Passing the re-allocated SDRs for Africa through the African Development Bank will serve Africa very well, provide financial leverage, and help recapitalize other African financial institutions, many of which the Bank helped to set up’, he said.
Addressing the summit, the African Union Commission Chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat, said that the Covid-19 pandemic had highlighted Africa’s unpreparedness for external shocks like new viruses.
He acknowledged that Africa’s 2.1 percent retraction in growth had set it back and threatened the achievement of the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
Source: AfDB
Photo source: World Bank
