It was on Tuesday, May 18 that the summit dedicated to the search for a new financial and economic system in Africa was held in Paris. Under the initiative of France, this meeting was mainly aimed at trying to save Africa from the financial asphyxia that threatens it now and after the pandemic. However, the conference did not result in any new financial commitments.

Two sessions were held at the meeting, one dedicated to financing and debt treatment, and the other on the African private sector. However, African leaders did not focus too much on these topics. Instead, they focused on access to vaccination against Covid-19 on the continent. For this reason, in the final communiqué, the leaders participating in the event concluded that "the immediate priority is to defeat the pandemic.

In this regard, during his speech, Felix Tshisekedi, President of the DRC and the African Union said that "This is not a conference or a forum that will remain a dead letter. Our objectives are to vaccinate the greatest number of people in Africa. It is true that there is some concern as an African that there is not enough mobilization of our populations. It is a certain concern due to the fact that the vaccine comes from elsewhere. That is why it is necessary to aim for vaccine production in Africa. I believe that this will have a significant impact on people's attitudes.

For French President Emmanuel Macron, he mentioned the need "to develop, through funding and industrial partnerships, a production capacity in Africa of adenovirus vaccines, recombinant proteins and messenger RNA, in the coming weeks.

Regarding the main theme of this summit, it is difficult to say that the Paris summit will be the starting point for a "New Deal" for financing Africa, as Emmanuel Macron had hoped. Nevertheless, in order to counter the effects of the pandemic and to total the sum of 285 billion dollars that will allow Africa to recover financially, Macron announced that he wanted to reallocate to the continent the SDRs belonging to France, and he called on all rich countries to do the same to reach a total of 100 billion dollars.

Ravaka Ny Aina

©Picture Source: TV5MONDE info

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