Africa needs “global solidarity and vaccine justice,” were the words of African Development Bank (AfDB) President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina on March 19. Adesina launched the Bank’s “African Economic Outlook 2021” report, and decried the economic effects that the lack of COVID-19 vaccines was having on Africa. The connection of global health with global economic recovery was paramount. With Adesina was economist and Nobel laureate (2001) Joseph Stiglitz, who in addition to endorsing an increased “healthcare defense,” for the continent, also endorsed the idea of “debt restructuring,” a topic first raised by his African host.
The AfDB president implicitly addressed the idea of global health, saying that “as long as Africans remain unvaccinated, the world will go right back to square one,” something no amount of imperial “vaccine passports” could prevent. “Africa needs to develop its pharmaceutical industry and begin manufacturing,” he said, insisting that “the African Development Bank is going to support African countries to do this.”
In support, Stiglitz said, “One of the things that some of us have been campaigning for is the suspension of the intellectual property rights related to COVID-19 because the supply constraint that you describe is at least, to some extent, artificial.… If access to the intellectual property rights were more extensive, there is throughout the emerging markets and developing countries considerable capacity to produce a lot of more vaccines.”
