Vaccines in Africa: Cabinet welcomes outcome of G20 Compact meeting

Cabinet welcomed the outcomes of the ‘G20 Compact with Africa’ meeting held in Berlin, Germany, last month.

Currently, 12 African countries have joined the ‘Compact with Africa’ initiative as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo in its capacity as the chair of the African Union.

‘G20 Compact with Africa’ agenda

Vaccine production in Africa

The meeting was held to discuss vaccine production on the continent, and to find ways to improve the business environment and increase investment.

“SA is a member of the G20 and co-chairs the ‘G20 Compact with Africa’ initiative alongside Germany”, a Cabinet statement on Thursday read.

President Cyril Ramaphosa also met with Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss bilateral and regional issues.

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Vaccine equality

During a press conference at the Compact with Africa initiative, President Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted that the country lobbied for vaccine equality and for the promotion of business on the continent.

“We expressed our disappointment and we expressed our unhappiness and said that it’s not fair that [the continent] has only vaccinated 2% of the 1.3 billion people and yet the more developed countries in the North have vaccinated up to 60%. We expressed a lot of unhappiness with this inequality that currently exists.

“It is to this end that South Africa and India made a proposal to the World Trade Organisation that there should immediately be a temporary suspension of the intellectual property rights so that vaccine production should be spread to other countries as well,” President Ramaphosa said.

Financial assistance

President Ramaphosa added that financial help for the continent was also on the agenda.

“We discussed at great length, with the participation of the IMF and the world bank on how finances can be made available to boost the African economies that have been damaged by the pandemic. We focussed on the [Special Drawing Rights] and argued that the SDRs need to be increased.

“There are 650 billion dollars that are being made available and the more developed countries are going to take a large portion thereof and we’ve argued that rather than Africa only have 33 Billion dollars, we need to have up to 100 billion dollars,” he said.

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