“The fact is, it’s not about sharing. It’s about allowing us access to the production capacity. If you loosen the contracts so that the supply capacity can be released to other nations, that is all we ask.”
“The pandemic revealed significant gaps in early warning capabilities to detect and respond to emerging pathogens before they cause global harm. Given the current situation, how can we leverage existing systems and emerging technologies to better characterize the various risk factors that could signal the next pandemic?”
How can African countries “build forward,” not build back, after COVID-19? Our panel of experts shares their thoughts on creating more resilient and more prosperous economies across the continent.
“COVID-19 has had a detrimental effect on environmental conservation. Not only has funding been diverted to deal with the pandemic, conservation-oriented organizations are operating with minimal staff or have closed entirely. The good news is that there is an unprecedented opportunity for philanthropy to recharge the effort to protect the planet.”
“History has shown that governments tend to deprioritize environmental commitments during times of financial and public crises as they work to mitigate immediate needs—and the age of COVID-19 has been no different. Even though human interaction with wildlife is believed to be the cause of the pandemic, the focus on COVID-19’s fallout has deprioritized the importance of reversing the damage humans have done to the planet.”
Africa is at the edge of FinTech innovation and a lack of financial inclusion, and COVID-19 has increased the stakes of getting the policy environment right for increasing access to finance.
“I certainly hope this is a unique moment where we will have profound conversations, not only about our own lessons or our own challenges, but about the future of humanity….This lockdown gives us the opportunity to have long conversations that otherwise would not have happened.”
Milken Institute Chairman Michael Milken discusses the IMF’s response to COVID-19 with Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.
“We have to remember in all of this that in Africa the economy is also a patient. Most of the economies of many of these countries are informal: mom‐and‐pop shops, micro and small businesses that are starving for capital. We worked with a number of our partners across multiple countries to put in place access to finance for micro and small businesses.”
“Public health will not be able to cope with this pandemic if it becomes a major crisis of the scale that we have seen in the West and in China. There’s almost nothing we can do about it because we just don’t have time. But it has been a massive wake-up call.”
A hub for information, analysis, and the global response to COVID-19’s impact on Africa