Several African officials gathered in Abidjan on Thursday for the International Development Association (IDA) for Africa summit to examine measures to aid the continent’s economic recovery following the Covid-19 outbreak.
Many countries, who were already experiencing slow growth, have been obliged to relax regulations as a result of an increase in viral infections, impacting revenues and jobs.
Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritania, Madagascar, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda were all anticipated to attend.
An official from the International Development Association (IDA), a World Bank entity that offers loans and grants to poor and emerging countries, spoke on the importance of increasing vaccination rates in Africa.
The World Bank’s director of operations, Axel van Trotsenburg, remarked, “We are far from the aim of vaccinating 40% of the population by the end of this year and 60% by the middle of next year.”
On Wednesday, Africa’s coronavirus case count surpassed six million, with some nations dealing with variant-driven outbreaks.
According to the African Union’s Centres for Disease Control, just 57 million vaccines have been provided, and only 1.2 percent of the continent’s 1.3 billion people have been properly immunized (CDC).
IDA is one of the most important financing sources for tackling severe poverty in the world’s poorest countries.
Educator, writer and legal researcher at Alafarika for Studies and Consultancy.