Africa stands to gain more from Biden’s vaccine diplomacy

By Ahmed Hadji

The international community is currently grappling to contain the COVID-19 Pandemic which has devastated communities around the world. All the hope is now in the vaccine.

The question is no longer when the vaccine will be developed or how safe it is, but how affordable and accessible it is to people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). 

There is no doubt that currently, LMICs are struggling to have even a quarter of their populations vaccinated. The reason, they either don’t have the money or are not willing to part with millions of dollars needed to buy significant doses. 

The possibility of getting rights, the technology, and logistics to manufacture the vaccine locally are still hanging in balance with the major companies still resisting calls to share the science. 
Africa South of the Sahara is the most hit of all regions and this can be detected from the frustrated voices from several African heads of states accusing the ‘rich countries’ of “Vaccine nationalism’. 

These voices were most pronounced at the recently concluded United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) where African leaders like Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa among others voiced their concerns over the decision by Western Countries to prioritize the vaccination of their nationals at the expense of people living in LMICs. 

However, many of the African leaders left New York with relief, thanks to President Joe Biden’s virtual Global COVID-19 Summit which he convened on the sidelines of UNGA on September 22, 2021. Over 300 heads of government, leaders from international organizations, and representatives of the private sector, the philanthropic sector, civil society, academia, and other stakeholders attended the summit with theme; ending the pandemic and building better health security to prevent and prepare for future biological threats.

Unlike the UNGA which was as a usual platform of speeches, Biden’s summit turned into a commitment platform. While the event was not a pledging conference, participants’ combined commitments exceeded 850 million additional COVID-19 vaccine doses and major new commitments for vaccine readiness, oxygen, testing, health systems, and health security financing.
President Biden announced bold new commitments from the United States to supply an additional 500 million doses of Pfizer vaccine that will all be shipped by this time next year, bringing the U.S. total commitment of donated vaccines to over 1.1 billion.
He announced a commitment of an additional $370 million to support global vaccine readiness and delivery, and he committed more than $380 million in assistance for Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, to provide political risk insurance to facilitate shipment of vaccines to nine countries across three continents.
The President also underscored the importance of saving lives now, and noted the United States is providing nearly $1.4 billion to reduce COVID-19 deaths and mitigate transmission through bulk oxygen support, expanded testing, strengthening healthcare systems, and more. 

That was not all from the U.S administration; Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the United States is prepared to contribute at least $250 million towards a global health security financial intermediary fund (FIF) to bring together new resources for pandemic preparedness, with an additional $850 million requested from the U.S. Congress.

The USAID Administrator Samantha Power announced an intention to commit $50 million to increase access to oxygen in countries around the world, and that USAID would work to build a multi-sectoral coalition to coordinate global investment in oxygen access.

Much as most of the pledges would be destined for Africa, participants had special packages for the continent.

President Biden pledged U.S financing to help strengthen vaccine manufacturing in South Africa and produce more than 500 million J&J doses in Africa for Africa by next year.

This must-have brought smiles to the faces of African leaders who had accused western powers of vaccine nationalism. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU is investing more than €1 billion with partners in Africa and the pharmaceutical sector to bring mRNA technology to the continent beginning with hubs in South Africa, and Senegal, and Rwanda.  

Dr. John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised regional manufacturing and the gap between African manufacturing and African consumption of the vaccine.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and the World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom-Ghebreyesus attended and spoke at the day-long side event. They both called for a global vaccination plan to at least double vaccine production and ensure 2.3 billion doses are equitably distributed through COVAX to reach 40 percent of people in all countries by the end of this year, and 70 percent in the first half of 2022 as WHO recommends. 

Even countries like Uganda which did not send a representative to the Summit stand to gain big from the Biden vaccine diplomacy because it is focused on donating, rather than selling, doses to low- and lower-middle-income countries, with no political strings attached.
The writer is a Senior Fellow with Africa Institute for Policy and Strategy and U.S Africa Foreign Policy Scholar with the University of Delaware, U.S DOS, SUSI.