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UPDATE Macron hosts Africa summit on post-COVID-19 economic recovery

Lady2023

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Post summit update is in post #11
———————————————————

Macron hosts Africa summit on post-COVID-19 economic recovery

With some two dozen African heads of state and financial institutions attending, the agenda of the gathering is to provide assistance for the continent.


French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting leaders of African countries and heads of global financial institutions for a summit that will seek to provide the continent with critical financing swept away by the impact of COVID-19.

Some two dozen African heads of state are attending Tuesday’s summit in Paris, one of the biggest in-person top-level meetings held during the pandemic. International financial leaders attending, included International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva as well as World Bank managing director of operations Axel van Trotsenburg.


The summit got under way at 11:00 GMT and is due to wind up with a 16:00 GMT press conference by Macron and Democratic Republic of the Congo President Felix Tshisekedi, whose country holds the rotating African Union presidency.

Africa has so far been less badly hit by the pandemic than other global regions – with a total of 130,000 dead across the continent.

However, the economic cost is only too apparent, with the IMF warning in late 2020 that Africa faces a shortfall in the funds needed for future development – a financial gap – of $290bn up to 2023.


A moratorium on the servicing of public debt agreed in April last year by the G20 and the Paris Club, a group of creditor countries that tries to find sustainable solutions for debtor nations, was welcomed but will not be enough on its own.


Many want a moratorium on the service of all external debt until the end of the pandemic.

We are collectively in the process of abandoning Africa by using solutions that date from the 1960s,” Macron said last month, warning that failure would lead to reduced economic opportunity, sudden migration flows and even the expansion of “terrorism”.

‘Lower interest rates needed’​

Serge Ekue, the president of the West African Development Bank (BOAD), told the AFP news agency that Africa needed much longer loan maturities that went beyond seven years and interest rates that were 3 percent rather than 6 percent.

“In West Africa, the average age is 20. You walk in (Ivory Coast’s biggest city) Abidjan and there is incredible energy,” he said, noting that Africa had seen economic growth rates of 5-6 percent in the last years.

“The issue is therefore not so much a moratorium as obtaining low rates. Because it is better to issue new, cheaper and longer debt than to obtain a suspension,” he said
.

The summit comes a day after a conference on Monday attended by several heads of state, that aimed at rallying support for the Sudanese government under Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in the transition after the 2019 removal of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir.

Macron notably announced that France would cancel almost $5bn in debt owed by Khartoum in order to help a transition he described as an “inspiration”.
 
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TheRealNikkiO

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Sir, economic discovery when Broke France is being financed by Francophone African countries?

The French are so aggravating, beautiful language but demonic ppl.
 

GlitterBelle

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Ugly wugly needs to leave Africa alone. Stop trying to tax these people they don't need your reliefs lies, they barely had corona. Why are all these piranhas out in Africa, get lost. I'm putting bad karma on France.
 

sweet_shaleen

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LMAO he's going to discuss how to deplete Africa to try to revive France economy.
 

LuxuriousDee

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Ugly wugly needs to leave Africa alone. Stop trying to tax these people they don't need your reliefs lies, they barely had corona. Why are all these piranhas out in Africa, get lost. I'm putting bad karma on France.
O there's is coming.
Trust me
It will be magnificent
 

leirah88

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While France still receiving colonial Tax from the continent that they have been robbing for decades.
They have a nerve to invite the African dummies like they are ding them a favour. It makes me angry how Africa always make a fool of itself.
Sometimes I wish I didn't know history of Africa.
 

Nayla

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Brigitte’s son-husband is such a terrible President.

I would be shock if he gets reelected. He needs to work on solving the big economic issues in his country, as the domestic terrorism.

You have your dogs everywhere in another continent, but can’t even keep your citizens safe and in peace in their own country! They make me laugh.

You need to ask for that ‘debt’ back from the corrupted African elites, who have been enjoying the money you gave them to let you steal all that good sh!t.

More people died in France than in the whole, big ass continent of Africa and you still have a damn curfew.

Their evil asses have their priorities all messed up.
 

Red Sonja

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Will Africans grow a back bone and say no to his bish ass. Africans need to rely on themselves and each other.
 

Didimimi

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This little weasel is obsessed with Africa. His condescending behavior towards the entire continent is even more obvious then the recent previous French president. Why do we keep entertaining that ferret?
 

Lady2023

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Update: Below it explains what was decided during the summit.

Paris summit mobilises finance, vaccines for Africa ‘New Deal’

French president calls for waiving of COVID vaccine patents so Africa could begin to produce its own jabs after talks with more than 20 African leaders in Paris.


2021-05-18T201626Z_52787419_RC2JIN9FDENQ_RTRMADP_3_FRANCE-AFRICA-SUMMIT.jpg


French President Emmanuel Macron holds a joint news conference with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, Senegal's President Macky Sall and African Union President and President of Congo Democratic Republic Felix Tshisekedi at the end of the Summit on the Financing of African Economies in Paris


A Paris summit Tuesday promised to help Africa overcome the coronavirus pandemic with a “New Deal” using global financial firepower to replenish depleted coffers and ramp up a sluggish vaccine rollout.

The summit, which brought together African leaders and global financial institutions, launched “a New Deal for Africa and by Africa”, host French President Emmanuel Macron told a news conference.


According to the latest AFP news agency tally from official sources, there have been a total of nearly 130,000 coronavirus deaths among African populations during the pandemic, compared with almost 3.4 million worldwide, although experts believe the official tolls in African countries could be undercounts.

The economic cost of the pandemic has been devastating, with the International Monetary Fund warning in late 2020 that Africa faces a shortfall of $290bn up to 2023, undermining all efforts at development.

Meanwhile, a slow vaccine rollout has raised concerns that variants could emerge on the continent that would then spread worldwide.

The summit was dominated by fears that while richer nations were launching economic recovery packages, Africa lacked the means to follow suit, and risked increased inequality and consequently insecurity
.


“We cannot afford leaving the African economies behind,” said the summit’s final declaration.

Call for vaccine patent waivers​

Macron said there was also great inequality in terms of limited African access to coronavirus vaccines, and the summit hoped that patents would be lifted so Africa could begin to produce its own jabs.

Citing the slow pace of vaccination as a major problem for the continent, Macron sought the vaccination of 40 percent of people in Africa by the end of 2021.

“The current situation is not sustainable, it is both unfair and inefficient,” he said.

“We are asking the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Medicines Patent Pool to remove all these constraints in terms of intellectual property which blocks the production of certain types of vaccines,” Macron added.

Senegal President Macky Sall hailed a “change of mentality” in the approach, with G20 nations realising their own wellbeing depended on vaccine progress in Africa.


“We have a common responsibility; vaccinating one’s own populations does not guarantee health security,” he said.

“This is a great opportunity for Africa,” Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, the current head of the African Union, said. The pandemic “left our economies impoverished because we had to use all the means we had, the few means we had, to fight against the disease.”

IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva warned that failure to accelerate the vaccine rollout in Africa would also have economic consequences.

“It is clear that there is no durable exit from the economic crisis unless we exit the health crisis,” she said.


On the finance front, “we will leverage on the international financial system to create the much-needed fiscal space for African economies,” the closing statement said.

The signatories said they would now push for the rapid general allocation of $650bn worth of special drawing rights (SDRs) by the IMF to all its members, of which approximately $33bn would go to Africa.


SDRs are a reserve asset used to bolster the financial position of IMF members, based on a basket of currencies, which can be converted for much-needed dollars.


The United States has been pushing for such an IMF payout to counter the economic impact of COVID-19, including low-income countries.


Macron told the news conference that several rich countries had agreed to turn their share of the SDRs over to African countries because $33bn “is too little”, hoping that voluntary contributions could boost the African share to $100bn, to which the IMF could add some of its gold reserves.

Some experts have criticised SDRs for being easy money for fiscally irresponsible nations, and Tuesday’s declaration urged countries “to utilise these new resources transparently and effectively
”.


Champion of global growth’​

Summit leaders promised that they would seek to complement the SDRs with “flexibility on debt and deficit ceilings”, but they also urged countries to undertake “necessary reforms at the national level”.


Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, a former boss of the European Central Bank, promised the summit’s proposals would be supported by the G20 group of countries, and “in all multilateral institutions around the world”.

Debt restructuring would feature large in efforts to help Africa, Draghi said.

Georgieva said there was “a very dangerous divergence between advanced economies and developing countries, especially Africa”.
 

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