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African Development Bank supports continental strategy on COVID-19 with US$27.33 million The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a grant of US$27.33 million to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC)
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n response to a request by the Bureau of the African Union Heads of State and Government, the African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a grant of US$27.33 million to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). Awarded under three key components – technical assistance and capacity building (US$19.33 million), institutional support (US$7 million) and contribution to the African Union COVID-19 Response Fund (US$ 1 million) – the grant is to support implementation of the Africa Joint Continental Strategy for COVID19 Outbreak. It will enable Africa CDC to provide technical assistance and capacity building support in combating the COVID19 pandemic and mitigating its impact in 37 African Development Fund eligible African Union Member States. “The fight against COVID-19 is far from being over”, said H.E. Amira Elfadil Mohammed, Commissioner for Social Affairs, African Union Commission. “This generous financial support from the African Development Bank will help strengthen the capacity of Africa CDC to respond to the COVID-19 and future pandemics. It will help improve the capacity of National Public Health Institutes of Member States, support evidence-based epidemic intelligence, strengthen infection prevention and control, and support the Regional Economic Communities”. “The expected outcome from the Bank’s collaboration with the Africa Union is a stronger Africa CDC able to rapidly coordinate emergency assistance across
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Africa, particularly in low income member countries, beyond the current COVID-19 response, working in collaboration with other development partners, including those in the private sector”, said Dr Abdul Kamara, Ethiopia Country Manager, African Development Bank. In February 2020, Africa CDC developed a continental strategy to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, aimed to enhance cooperation, collaboration, coordination and communication while preventing severe illness and death and minimizing social disruption and economic consequences due to the pandemic. The strategy was validated by the African ministers of health in February and endorsed by the Bureau of Heads of State and Government in March 2020. Although Africa has not recorded very high number of COVID-19 cases and deaths as in other continents, the impact of the pandemic has been very high on the continent, exerting intense pressure on the already fragile health system and
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adversely affecting the socioeconomic situation on the continent. Since the validation and endorsement of the continental strategy, Africa CDC has continued to leverage resources to provide technical and material support to Member States in their response to COVID-19. In June 2020, Africa CDC rolled out the Partnership to Accelerate COVID19 Testing (PACT), an initiative that has enabled it to bring partners together as a collective to expand testing, contact tracing and treatment of COVID-19 cases across the continent. “We see PACT as a movement that allows us to do certain things very quickly. Since it was rolled out, testing, contact tracing and treatment have improved across the continent, but we are not there yet. What this tells us is that what we are doing is working and we must intensify our efforts. This is why partnership with institutions like AfDB is very important to us”, said Dr John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC.
