It is appropriate to begin this piece by saluting all our healthcare workers, members of the SA Police Service (SAPS) and the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) and other essential-services workers who are doing the heavy lifting in helping us fight and defeat the coronavirus pandemic, and survive, during the national lockdown.
The Covid-19 pandemic requires unlimited, unprecedented and unrestrained responses from governments across the world. This is the worst pandemic to confront the global community over the past 100 years. It requires an urgent, unprecedented concrete, co-ordinated and comprehensive global response.
The world showed unity of purpose in responding to the 2008 global financial crisis. When the Ebola virus hit West Africa, then US President Barack Obama co-ordinated a successful global response in conjunction with the AU which had our own Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as chair of the AU Commission.
More than 3,000 US troops were deployed to West Africa while Dlamini-Zuma led the charge in ensuring that more than 1,500 health workers from across Africa were trained to tackle the epidemic. That’s how Ebola was defeated. Unfortunately, when that kind of action is required more than ever before, it seems be conspicuously missing.
Instead, what we are seeing is a mosaic of nationalist responses that are more inward and less outward looking. Countries are jostling for position to get desperately needed medical supplies for their own nationals at the exclusion of their neighbours, regions and other parts of the world. It’s an every man or woman for him or herself situation. That’s unhelpful and unhealthy.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg has argued that the world needs a co-ordinated global response and co-operation to deal with this pandemic effectively. Norway is one of the countries that has done well in handling this pandemic to the extent that it will be easing its lockdown restrictions by opening schools after the Easter weekend.
Emerging markets and African countries in particular are at a huge disadvantage as they lack the requisite resources and political and economic capital to access desperately needed medical supplies and the essential personal protective equipment (PPE) for our healthcare workers and citizens. That is why a global call for a Marshall Plan for Africa needs to be made emphatically and loudly enough.
It is in the enlightened self-interest of rich, Western countries, companies and societies to build Africa’s resilience and capacity to effectively fight and defeat the coronavirus and other similar global pandemics that may occur in future. It is also, above all, the morally correct thing to do. This is the time for global social solidarity.
It is the time to summon our global humanity and compassion to create a better, inclusive and empowering world for all. Millions of Africans stand to suffer the most from this global pandemic due to grossly under-resourced healthcare systems and inefficient supply chains to move medical supplies and professionals to where and when they are needed most.
Most African countries lack basic testing capabilities and medical supplies, and infrastructure is weak at best, and, at worst, wanting when it comes to coping with such a global pandemic.
The best way of dealing with this pandemic before it decimates millions of lives, as the Spanish flu more than 100 years ago did, is to err on the side of overreacting and reacting fast to it.
There is a bigger price to pay for underreacting and reacting slowly as it has become evident in the emerging global trends on how different countries are faring. We have no choice but to elevate the response to Covid-19 to be a burning national and global strategic priority that requires a war-like response.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and his administration must be commended for the bold and decisive action they have taken to lead the charge by declaring a state of national disaster, which was followed by the 21-day nationwide lockdown. The deployment of tens of thousands of fieldworkers on a mass screening and testing campaign will assist in determining the number of infected people, which is a fundamental prerequisite to an effective fightback strategy against this pandemic.
Ramaphosa also held a virtual heads of state and government Covid-19 summit in his capacity as the current chair of the AU. Concrete, co-ordinated and comprehensive action at AU level is key to a successful African response as no African country, acting alone, can fight and win against this pandemic.
However, action by Africans alone will not be enough. What, then, needs to be done? First, we need the world to prioritise the allocation of financial, intellectual and healthcare resources to build and maintain Africa’s capabilities and resilience to fight and defeat this pandemic and others that emerge in the future.
This requires a comprehensive Marshall Plan for Africa that is co-ordinated and executed at a global level. This should be a comprehensive strategy to modernise African economies and societies in ways minimise Africa’s dependence and deepens its autonomy and self reliance.
Second, the Group of 20 (G20) group of countries need to be co-ordinated in their response to the crisis and in how they share their resources with Africa. The lack of co-ordinated and collaborative action among G20 countries is conspicuously absent. This is embarrassing and unacceptable. It was co-ordinated and collaborative action among G20 countries that helped the world emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis. The lack of unifying and unified leadership among G20 countries needs to be urgently resolved if we are to fight and defeat this pandemic at a global and national level.
Third, African countries need to speak with one voice and collaborate with one another in the fight against this pandemic.
While the lockdowns are necessary as short-term decisive measures, they should not reverse the regional integration and globalisation projects. Africa’s plans to launch its African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) on July 1 should not be delayed or derailed by the lockdowns.
The AfCFTA can offer medium- to long-term solutions to strengthening Africa’s capacity to deal with similar pandemics in future as a first-world continent capable of contributing global solutions to global problems. A Marshall Plan for Africa will promote a better life for Africans while promoting the global public good.
• Dlamini is the chair of Aspen Pharmacare and Massmart
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