Impact on Africa - this week's World Vs Virus podcast
A teacher screens students as schools begin to reopen in Langa township, Cape Town, South Africa Image: REUTERS/Mike Hutchings
- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala ex-finance minister of Nigeria, ex-managing director of World Bank, current Chair of the Board of the Gavi alliance for vaccines.
- Warns of complacency at relatively small number of COVID cases in Africa.
- Fear economic impact on pandemic could wipe out years of development.
- Michelle Bachelet, UN human rights chief, says COVID has helped exposed inequalities; calls for end to police brutality.
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"We should not be complacent about where Africa is at the moment," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala tells this week's World Vs Virus podcast.
"I know many people are seeing that the number of deaths on the continent is quite low, but the trajectory of the disease is still up. We do not see flattening of curves because the number of cases is still doubling every two weeks and that is with very minimal testing."
Okonjo-Iweala served as finance minister under two Nigerian presidents, rose through the ranks of the World Bank to become a managing director, and now chairs the board of GAVI, the global alliance for vaccines.
On the economic impact, Okonjo-Iweala says a forecast drop in output across continent could be disastrous.
"Right now the prediction is for contraction on the continent of about 2%. This has not happened for the past 25 years. So I have this fear that the two or three decades of growth that we've had and our development may be lost, we may be set back unless we act massively to reverse this and make sure it doesn't happen, during the recovery period."
Also in this episode, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet talks about the links between COVID-19 and race and inequality - and also on how police and governments must deploy an intelligent, sensitive response to unrest.
"Leaders need to listen to what's going on, need to tackle the root causes," she says of anti-racist and other protests that are often met by police brutality.
"The freedom of assembly and the freedom of protest, if it's peaceful, it has to be respected, it has to be heard."
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