News & Analysis: China-Africa relations
COVID-19 Africa Watch talks to Danny Leipziger, Professor of International Business at the George Washington University, about debt and debt relief amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“As more African countries record the second wave of coronavirus infections, and some record novel and more infectious variants, African governments are turning toward COVID-19 vaccines produced by Russia, India, and China despite skepticism about some of these vaccines.”
“The vaccine is spoken of as a ‘global public good,’ but it is already apparent that some parts of the world will have it in substantial numbers much sooner than others. Scarcity creates a market, and the vaccine becomes a valuable geopolitical commodity for those with an excess at their disposal.”
“Chronic disease sufferers and medical staff could begin the vaccination process during the first or second week of January.”
“African countries are spending around 2.5% of GDP to combat COVID-19’s impacts. While this is this is significantly below spending by other regions, set against this is a prevailing narrative that African countries owe huge debts to China, and this is impairing African countries’ abilities to address COVID-19, or indeed, to continue to function in a stable way.”
“The Ugandan health ministry sparked quite a bit of confusion on Wednesday when it announced that it would allow Chinese residents in the country to import 4,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine from China to be used within their own community. The ministry said that the inoculations would only be available to Chinese residents living in an industrial zone outside of Kampala and no Ugandans would have access to the treatment. “
“Morocco is gearing up for an ambitious COVID-19 vaccination program, aiming to vaccinate 80% of its adults in an operation starting this month that’s relying initially on a Chinese vaccine that has not yet completed advanced trials to prove it is safe and effective.”
“The Ministry of Health announced on Friday that the vaccine Morocco will use in the upcoming national COVID-19 vaccination campaign is from Sinopharm, a state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company.”
COVID-19 Africa Watch talks to Dr. Youssef Boutros-Ghali, former Finance Minister of Egypt and former chairman of the IMF’s International Monetary and Financial Committee, about the economic impact of the pandemic, the policy response, SDRs, and more.
“A palpable sense of anxiety is emerging from a number of African capitals that when COVID-19 vaccines are finally available, poorer, lesser-developed countries are going to once again be at the end of the line. We saw this earlier this week when Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta suddenly pivoted away from depending entirely on European vaccines, to now looking to Asia for support.”
A hub for information, analysis, and the global response to COVID-19’s impact on Africa