COVID-19 Updates

COVID-19 Updates » Africa's COVID-19 Recovery will be the Slowest Globally – AfCFTA Secretary-General

Africa's COVID-19 Recovery will be the Slowest Globally – AfCFTA Secretary-General


blog-image

December 14, 2021 at 3:08 PM

Secretary-General for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Wamkele Mene, has disclosed that Africa's recovery from COVID-19 will be the slowest among world regions due to limitations, fiscal constraints, monetary policies, insufficient support and the slow vaccine rollout.

The pandemic has caused significant disruption, hardship and nearly every aspect of people's lives have been affected in almost two years since its onset. The effect of the outbreak continues to weigh heavily on national economies.

Moreover, the African continent is expected to transition from the COVID-19 induced recession of 2020. The expected growth rates of 3.4 and 4.5 percent in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Speaking at the 2021 Kusi Ideas Festival organized by the Nation Media Group (NMG) in collaboration with the Ghana Tourism Authority, under the theme "How Africa transforms after the virus", Mr Mene said, "There is a major need for African countries to step up and accelerate efforts towards transformation of our economies, diversified export markets, inclusive and sustained patterns of economic growth".

"It is pertinent at the outset to recall that the different times in the different phases of the pandemic, there were significant disruptions to supply chains and better machines, as well as the imposition by others on Africa, trade restrictions and export bans, particularly on materials that are required to fight the pandemic," he said.

In order to address these challenges, the AfCFTA Secretariat in collaboration with the MasterCard Foundation is developing a private sector strategy, focusing on four initial priority sectors of value chains agro-processing, automotive sector, pharmaceuticals, transport and logistics, which are based on the potential for import substitution and existing production capabilities in Africa.

"These value chains have the potential to contribute over 11 billion dollars in production and over 5 billion dollars annually in intra-African trade, more than double the current contribution of these value chains to intra-African trade today."

Read More