2022 must be a year where collective global action prioritizes vaccine equity and ensures a shot for all. Omicron has reminded us that there is just no other way to build forward better.
By Ahunna Eziakonwa, UN Assistant-Secretary General, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Regional Bureau for Africa Director.
We are about to start a third year of living with COVID-19. The world’s humanity and solidarity are now at a further test – and yet implications of the absence of solidarity keep us all in the boat of mutations, lockdowns, quarantines and delayed SDGs – denied prosperity for all. 2021 has unearthed a new expression of global inequity: “vaccine nationalism” – itself competing with high with socioeconomic downturns, jobless growth, the climate crisis, and rising poverty.
As the pandemic ravages on, with Omicron on the scene, the futility of hoarding takes centre stage as even the heavy supply of boosters in advanced economies has not shielded them from the vicious cycle of pandemic-living. While about 60 percent of the population in the US and 76 percent of that in Canada are fully vaccinated, in Africa – a continent home to 1.3 billion people – the number barely reaches 8 percent. Many have argued that vaccines’ short shelf life, hesitancy and logistic
The world’s humanity and solidarity are now at its further test – and yet the implications of the absence of solidarity keep us all in the boat of mutations, lockdowns, quarantines and delayed SDGs – denied prosperity for all. 2021 has unearthed a new expression of global inequity: “vaccine nationalism” – which itself competes high with socioeconomic downturns, jobless growth, the climate crisis, and rising poverty.
Vaccine inequality is also manifesting in terms of affordability. For high income countries to vaccinate 70 percent of their population, it will take raising their health care spending by 0.8 percent. Lower income countries must increase health care spending by over 50 percent, on average – to do the same.
Vaccines delayed is development denied. Estimates show that vaccine delays cost Africa up to $14 billion in lost productivity each month – making recovery more challenging, and dragging out the first-in-a-generation recession the continent is facing.
African governments have responded quickly to contain the spread of the virus – but success is overshadowed by the pandemic’s socioeconomic consequences. In 2019, Africa was witnessing record growth numbers in various sectors: like tourism; where the continent had the second-fastest growing tourism sector in the world, contributing 8.5 percent of Africa’s GDP.
However, with the pandemic, tourism has come to a standstill. Africa recorded a 2.1 percent decline in economic growth in 2020, with other accompanying challenges including general exchange rates depreciations, food insecurity and increased job losses.
Vaccine delays will cost Sub-Saharan Africa 3 percent of the region’s forecast GDP in 2022-25. UNDP research reveals that recovery rates are strongly correlated to capacity to vaccinate – with a $7.93 billion increase in global GDP for every million people vaccinated. Low-income countries that are severely impacted by the pandemic do not have the fiscal and financial leeway available to wealthy countries.
They risk enduring the pandemic longer if they do not gain early access to COVID-19 vaccines. This places an inordinate burden on national budgets at a time when the pandemic has decimated fiscal revenues and when higher spending is needed from governments to protect their people and cushion the socioeconomic shock caused by the pandemic.
There is a risk of seeing African countries’ budget deficits widen and it is urgent for us to support countries in developing alternative financing sources. Vaccine famine is putting millions at risk of infection, constraining economic productivity and jeopardizing socioeconomic progress.
The key question today is: Can the world afford such blatant inequality in the face of a pandemic that is sparing no region?
The path to recovery will remain long and uncertain unless we take urgent measures to overhaul the current system of vaccine production, distribution, and financing. Below are some ideas on how to get there fast – building on a consensus that emerged from the recently concluded African Economic Conference in Sal, Cabo Verde.
Article first appeared at IPS – Inter Press Service