May 25, 2021
By Evan CHARLES InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general (DG) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on Tuesday said the reversal of COVID-19 vaccine inequity would fetch the world about $9 trillion by 2025.
Okonjo-Iweala made this disclosure at the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc Africa Day’s 2021 celebration in commemoration of African unity.
“Going back to vaccines, the IMF just did an interesting study where they showed that if we spend additional $50 billion to vaccinate 40 percent of the world’s population by 2021 and up to 60 percent by 2022 we will be able to reverse this vaccine inequity and the world can gain $9 trillion by 2025, the numbers are staggering compare $50 billion to $9 trillion if we did it right, we can collect an additional $1 trillion in taxes nationally,” she added.
According to the WTO DG, its important for the world to reverse the vaccine inequity and Africa benefits from it, “we cannot recover sustainably without it. So, we have to fight for it, whether its getting more vaccines in from outside production, or manufacturing ours, the WTO stands ready to do all to keep supply chain open for these manufacturers,” she said.
Okonjo-Iweala while reflecting on Africa’s day and the covid-19 vaccination affirmed that African youths are golden and should be mobilised productively in order to help in the recovery from the pandemic. “Today is Africa Day and as we reflect on what it means and I think from my own part our youths are what we have, youths are golden to us, if we can mobilise our youths productively to try to recover from this pandemic, it will be an excllent idea” the WTO DG noted.
She hailed the efforts of African leaders in tackling the pandemic by coming together with a one-Africa approach by building the vaccines acquisition group, medical supplies platform and bringing together the Covid-19 envoys of which she is privileged to be part of.
“I’m very proud of what the continent has done so far in coming together, our leaders really tried to build a one-Africa approach to this by building the vaccines acquisition group, medical supplies platform and bringing together the COVID-19 envoys which I’m privileged to be one. I’m supporting the CDC; but if we are to recover sustainably from this crisis, we have to correct the vaccine inequity that is so evident in the world today, the fact that we have vaccinated so little of our population is not acceptable, ” she affirmed
The WTO DG expressed he dismay about Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organisation (WHO) DG’s assertion that Africa imports 99 percent of COVID-19 vaccines and 90 percent of the continents pharmaceuticals.
On his part on the rising insecurity in Africa., President Paul Kagame of Rwanda advised that Africans should invest in one another, “the best thing leaders, not only Presidents or Prime Ministers, but people playing leadership in different roles will be to invest in one another or at least thinking about one anther’s well-being and do what we have to do to create a stable and sustainable African continent.
According to Kagame, Africa needs to invest more time and resources in tackling the root cause of the problem that breeds insecurity by enacting good policies, not only domestically but internationally as well. “We need to invest more time and resources, we need peace, we must put in place good policies both domestically and internationally, we can’t just switch off conflicts or crisis unless we invest in addressing the root causes of these problems. We need to put a sense of urgency in this and we need to be more serious in tackling the problem , we need to walk the talk whether its at the AU summit or other sub-regional meetings where leaders meet to address problems, we need to put a sense of urgency and more serious in doing things rather than talking , we have poverty crisis we need to address,” he added.
The Rwandan President advised African leaders to capitalise on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which presents a major opportunity for African countries to bring 30 million people out of extreme poverty.
AfCFTA is a free trade area founded in 2018 and trade commenced January 1, 2021. It was created by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement among 54 of the 55 African Union nations.
He said we must capitalise on AfCFTA and benefit from it not only in name but in practice,” we are not realizing the benefits we ought to, we want to and countries must work together in peace to have security and stability , we are doing very good things on one hand and on the other-hand we just miss the opportunity of what those things will do for us in future, its a big challenge, we need to do more of the things that will give us results,” Kagame added.
Ghebreyesus, DG of WHO on responding to Africa’s population and its inequitable vaccination on COVID-19 disclosed the 1.5 percent share of the vaccine Africa got was insignificant, “the problem is vaccine nationalism, and many are calling it vaccine apartheid, telling the truth is important in order to overcome the problems. When we come to solutions the world should agree on the importance of corporation. There are three ways countries can engage each other cooperation, competition and confrontation, for this pandemic the only option is cooperation,’ the WHO DG noted.
He urged countries to cooperate to share what is available to fight a common enemy which is the pandemic, “we are better, when we share, its not charity, its in the interest of the whole world; even in the interest of the developed countries who can share and will be protected when they share. We have good news the US announced 18 million doses to share including France, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Sweden all announced, its good to share to help us address the critical challenges that we have now,” Ghebreyesus, added.
According to him for the immediate and long term the world needs to increase the volume of the vaccines available by manufacturing and ensure technology transfer a form of voluntary licensing which AstraZeneca Plc, British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology has started doing. “We should use all options we have to make sure we increase vaccine production and coverage across countries,” he advised.
Okonjo-Iweala while responding on actions to be taken in catalysing Africa’s recovery and economic growth post pandemic era, postulated few short term approaches, apart from tackling the healthcare challenge, getting more fiscal stimulus into the economy in order to empower the private sectors is necessary.
She said the developed economies are recovering fast due to the fact they have been able to implement massive amounts of fiscal stimulus, “for the rich countries 28 percent of GDP, emerging economies 6.9 percent and poorer countries 2%,’ the WTO DG noted.
According to her, African economies require fiscal space to breath, noting that African leaders like Kagame have been pursuing Special Drawing Rights (SDR) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of an approved $650 billion of which Africa will be getting $34 billion or more subsequently. “If we want to recover, African economies should be given space to breath not on only on health, but fiscal space and economic side,” she affirmed.
“This is how we are going to recover, we can use this to help implement more fiscal stimulus so that our economies can get to recover, we can use some for liquidity for the private sector, in the rich countries the private sector has gotten assess to credit and liquidity and has recovered,’ she added.
The WTO DG said the second policy is how to revive the services sector, “many of our countries depends on Tourism , logistics like aviation in places like Ethiopia, all these are in the short term,” she said.
“In the long term we have to diversify our economy, we are too vulnerable to movements in commodity prices we have seen it during this pandemic, be it oil, gas etc, countries doing better are those with more diversified economy, leverage on AfCFTA to specialise some of our countries in production, trade more with each other and with the the outside world,” Okonjo-Iweala affirmed.
Tony Elumelu, Nigerian economist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist moderated the virtual event, he is also the chairman of Heirs Holdings, the United Bank for Africa, Transcorp and founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation.
