By BAKANG MOKOTO
The outgoing African Union chairperson, Cyril Ramaphosa said that they are working with the COVAX Facility to ensure that African countries also get their fair share of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Ramaphosa said the vaccine roll-out campaign has already commenced and is led by the Vaccine Acquisition Task Team.
“The vaccine rollout has already commenced on the continent and we aspire to have the majority of the continent’s population vaccinated by the end of 2021 to achieve herd immunity.
“We have acted as one to protect health, people, and livelihoods on the continent. In doing so, we have demonstrated our capacity for self-reliance and our ability to be the drivers of our own development,” he said.
Ramaphosa further said despite the dominance of COVID-19, they have still managed to make advances in several of our key priorities. He said during their term, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was finally launched, heralding a new era of intra-African trade and economic integration.
“Even under the difficult conditions posed by the pandemic, the continent has pushed ahead towards the goal of ‘silencing the guns’ on the continent. The AU has been actively involved in negotiations around the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, in achieving a ceasefire in Libya and promoting peace in South Sudan.
“The priorities we outlined for our term, among them furthering peace and security, the economic empowerment of women, and deepening economic integration had to be immediately and dramatically reoriented to deal with the pandemic.
“Our most pressing task was to steer the focus of the African Union to addressing the worst global emergency in over a century. COVID-19 has affected all the countries on the continent. To date, there are more than 3.5 million confirmed cases in Africa and more than 88,000 people have died,” said Ramaphosa.
He added that it has been a health, humanitarian, social and economic crisis for African countries, most of which are inadequately resourced to manage a health emergency of this size. Ramaphosa added that yet, as unprecedented as the nature of the pandemic has been, so too has been the manner in which African countries have come together to fight it.
“In doing so, we have drawn principally on the continent’s own expertise, capabilities, and institutions such as Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
“Africa did not sit by passively as the true extent and danger of the pandemic unfurled. From the earliest days of the pandemic and led by the AU, we swiftly developed a continental response strategy, driven by the Africa CDC and regional task forces,” he said.
Ramaphosa said they have realised that every country on the continent would be severely affected by the pandemic. He said most would not have the resources needed to meet the public health challenge or to protect their economies.
“We, therefore, agreed as African countries to appoint several prominent Africans as special envoys, who would engage with international funders and multilateral institutions to make the case for financial support and debt relief on Africa’s behalf.
“In this way, working as one continent, we were able to achieve debt relief for many countries and financial assistance towards our COVID response and economic recovery. But much as African countries went to the international community for support, we first helped ourselves – establishing and capitalising a continental COVID-19 Response Fund,” said Ramaphosa.
He further said for every partnership forged with better-resourced nations and the international donor community, they have set up their own innovative and ground-breaking African Medical Supplies Platform to enable all African countries to quickly secure personal protective equipment and other medical supplies in an equitable, affordable manner.
The Guardian 