French President Emmanuel Macron greets Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo at the Summit on the Financing of African Economies in Paris yesterday.
But the economic cost has been devastating, with the International Monetary Fund warning in late 2020 that Africa faces a shortfall of US$290 billion up to 2023, undermining all efforts at development. Citing the slow pace of vaccination as a major problem for the continent, Macron staked out an aim of vaccinating 40% of people in Africa by the end of 2021.“We are asking the WHO, the WTO and the Medicines Patent Pool to remove all these constraints in terms of intellectual property which blocks the production of certain types of vaccines,” Macron added.
“It is clear that there is no durable exit from the economic crisis unless we exit the health crisis,” she said. The US has been pushing for such an IMF payout to counter the economic impact of Covid-19, including for low-income countries.