In this episode of Africa Aware, Tighisti Amare highlights some of the key messages from the policy for recovery in Africa dialogue series that the Chatham House Africa Programme held in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The dialogue series brought key stakeholders together to engage on issues affecting post-COVID-19 recovery in Africa, presenting a diverse range of opinions and insights focused on what policies are needed for accelerating recovery from the pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted urgent calls for informed cooperation between African governments and international partners to respond to the crisis. Immediate healthcare responses across Africa built on lessons learned from combatting infectious diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and Ebola. But asymmetric vaccine access between the global north and south exposed critical inequalities in international health security and triggered calls for more equitable allocation.
Compounding these health impacts, sustainable development was put on the backburner and more than 20 low-income African countries were in debt distress or at risk of debt distress in autumn 2021. The social and economic disruption caused by the pandemic requires a concerted and connected response, comprising new partnerships to tackle development inequalities and vulnerabilities.