African leaders should collaborate to combat COVID-19: Webinar consensus

African leaders expressed the need for collaboration to combat the novel coronavirus pandemic that has so far infected over 460,000 people and killed over 11,000 in the continent, as well as deepen post-epidemic recovery efforts.

The leaders who spoke during a webinar on post-COVID-19 reconstruction, organized by the African chapter of the International Summit Council for Peace, on Saturday applauded the continent's efforts so far in fighting the pandemic.

Uhuru Kenyatta, the president of Kenya, commended Africa's concerted response to the virus, saying measures being implemented by African countries are helping to slow the virus' spread.

The president said despite limited resources, the continent has rolled out proactive measures that are helping to save lives.

"Africa has responded to coronavirus much better than most other parts of the world, particularly when you consider its relatively weaker resource base. For a continent with 1.2 billion people, we have about 400,000 confirmed cases and just over 10,000 deaths," Kenyatta said.

Kenyatta urged African leaders to continue working together with the support of partners to craft interventions that enhance the resilience of the continent's vulnerable populations.

"We should work in collaboration with our development partners to build capacity for local production of health equipment and to strengthen our local manufacturing capacity more generally," he said.

The president warned against complacency in Africa's coronavirus response, saying the pandemic is likely to get worse in the coming months.

"We need to actively prepare for the looming crisis. Let me, however, hasten to add that there is no room for complacency," he said.

Kenyatta said peer learning, data driven decision-making, pragmatism and regular and transparent communication are some of the best practices that will stand Africa in a better position to defeat novel coronavirus.

Goodluck Jonathan, the former president of Nigeria and the chairman of the African chapter of the International Summit Council for Peace, congratulated the African Union for its leadership in the fight against the pandemic.

Jonathan said the prominent role played by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Africa COVID-19 Fund and the joint Africa procurement platform in COVID-19 response had demonstrated the continent's potential to overcome its development challenges going forward.

In his earlier comment as chairman of the forum, Jonathan stressed that African leaders must come together to collectively confront the challenges facing the continent, especially social, economic and governance issues as reported by the Independent.

"The coronavirus pandemic places urgency of actions on African leaders to move from plans to implementations of the different developmental strategies. I am particularly optimistic that conversations such as this will chart a new course towards building a new world, an interdependent peaceful and just nations of Africa," Jonathan said.

Catherine Samba-Panzi, the former president of the Central African Republic, said Africa's response to COVID-19 should give more prominence to women.

She said women should be given the same prominence as frontline health workers because they play the same role at the household level.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an intergovernmental economic organization, women make up almost 70 percent of the health care workforce, exposing them to a greater risk of infection.

At the same time, they are shouldering much of the burden at home, given school and child care facility closures and longstanding gender inequalities.