Cabo Verde’s president, Jorge Carlos Fonseca, called on Tuesday for Africa to have “universal, equal and fast access” to vaccines against Covid-19, personal protective equipment and medical products, in addition to the “cancellation or relief” of the continent’s foreign debt.
In his message for Africa Day, which is celebrated on 25 May, the head of state expressed the hope that these objectives would met and that “African countries will continue to work together so that no country is left behind in terms of immunisation of its population and the recovery of the economy.”
He recalled that for the second consecutive year, Africa Day is being marked “in very special circumstances” – due to the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic – which “unexpectedly and with great intensity, came to destabilise … the essential patterns of the existence and functioning of societies: aAccentuating or creating new forms of precariousness, with high social and economic costs for all nations, reversing progress in human development and widening inequalities between developed and developing countries, especially those on our continent.”
Fonseca added that since March 2020, as in other continents, “Africa has been negatively affected by the multiple consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic in all areas of human endeavour.”
According to the president, countries in Africa need to respond to the broader socio-economic impacts of the pandemic and extend their action to other areas such as the effects of natural disasters and climate change, endemic poverty and hunger, unemployment, social inequalities, lack of safe drinking water, adequate shelter and sanitation, urban slums and informal settlements, as well as food insecurity.
He stressed that Africa Day – which was established to mark the creation in 1963 of the Organisation of African Unity, which has since become the African Union – “besides being a time of celebration” is a time to reflect on the challenges faced “and for which it is important to find common, effective and coordinated solutions, with a view to an inclusive economic and social development for all African countries and peoples.”
He also stated that “despite the general worsening of the economic and social situation on the continent” due to the pandemic, he had no doubt “that Africa is increasingly driving its own future” through its guiding vision for development, the African Union’s Agenda 2063, and the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.
He further welcomed as an example of the path to development on the continent the coming into force of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), representing one of the largest markets in the world, “with the potential to drive regional integration, economic growth, generate jobs, alleviate poverty and lead to more stable and peaceful societies.”
Macaubusiness.com
