As part of the unified continental response to the fight against the pandemic, on Friday Cyril Ramaphosa, chairman of the African Union and the president of South Africa, launched the Africa Medical Supplies Platform.
The platform is a single online marketplace to enable the supply of coronavirus-related critical medical equipment in Africa.
The platform unlocks immediate access to an African and global base of vetted manufacturers and procurement strategic partners and enables African Union member states to purchase certified medical equipment, such as diagnostic kits, personal protective equipment and clinical management devices, with increased cost effectiveness and transparency.
The platform serves as a unique interface enabling volume aggregation, quota management and payment facilitation, as well as logistics and transportation, to ensure equitable and efficient access to critical supplies for African governments.
The African Export-Import Bank will facilitate payments while logistics partners, including African national carriers and global freight forwarders, will expedite delivery.
Strive Masiyiwa, the African Union special envoy, said they are already getting requests from other parts of the world to license the Africa Medical Supplies Platform concept.
“Africa is leading the way with this online solution to ensure all of our governments get access to personal protective equipment and other urgent medical supplies they need, at fair prices,” Masiyiwa said.
Doctor John Nkengasong, the director of Africa CDC, said they are committed to providing market intelligence on where the manufacturers are, facilitating pooled procurement when financial resources are made available through the initiative, and distributing the products to respective African destinations.
Professor Benedict Oramah, president of the African Export-Import Bank, said the whole initiative is important because the increasingly difficult global trade and financing environment would not only limit the potential of African countries to procure essential supplies, but could also limit their ability to scale up their production capacities.
“Our joint initiative with the Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union, through Africa CDC, is a proactive way to respond to the pandemic more effectively,” he said.
“Afreximbank is also engaging its development partners in coronavirus response efforts to mobilize additional resources and technical assistance.”
Vera Songwe, the executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, said the organization is engaging private sector stakeholders and governments to adopt policies to urgently bolster the production and supply chain of critical medical and associated resources that Africa needs to respond to coronavirus in a manner that promotes the economic and social development of the continent.
Through support from the commission, the continent is set to roll out a groundbreaking mobile-based public communications platform to provide more than 600 million users across the continent with the latest public health advice.
The Africa Communications Information Platform also will furnish national and regional coronavirus task forces with user-generated survey data and actionable health and economic insights.
By improving national data and statistics, the platform will enable authorities to better analyze pandemic related problems and implement appropriate responses. It also will allow coronavirus-taskforces to deploy health and economic resources to mitigate the pandemic’s impact.
The platform will be launched at an online event hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa on June 23.
To address financing challenges, on June 18, the Pan-African Parliament urged its members to ensure that African Union member states allocate adequate funding to cater for healthcare systems when budgets are submitted to parliaments for consideration.
The call followed a briefing to members of the Pan-African Parliament committees on health and gender by the Africa CDC, which revealed that inadequate healthcare services impeded Africa’s response to novel coronavirus during the early days of the spread of the global health threat.
The Africa CDC has described the continent’s limited health budget, weak health facilities and shortage of health workers as hindrances to the fight against pandemics in general.
