39 million Africans May Fall into Extreme Poverty—Adesina

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Mr Akinwumi Adesina, has warned that about 39 million Africans could fall into extreme poverty in 2021.

The respected banker said this in an exclusive interview on CNN’s First Move with Julia Chatterley, recently, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the challenges facing the continent.

He, therefore, called on the world, especially the advanced economies, to come to the aid of Africa, which is finding it difficult to vaccinate its over one billion population.

“Last year, we had 30 million people went into extreme poverty. This year if that trend continues, 39 million people going into extreme poverty, hunger and all of that,” he warned.

Lockdown effect on Africa

The former Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan said the restriction of movements last year affected the continent.

“If you look at it, during the pandemic, it started with the lockdowns. The lockdowns had a lot of impact on poor people.

“Social distancing was impossible because a lot of people were living in very poor neighbourhoods, very poor ventilation.

“For many people, they have the risk of dying from hunger than actually from dying from the Covid-19 situation.

“So, when people who don’t have access to food, who don’t get access to work because a day without work is a day without food. And so, that will actually create unrest, because citizens get so nervous and so upset and young people have lost a lot of jobs. And so, a lot of work has to be done. For us, it’s how do you build back. Making sure you have economic resilience,” he told CNN.

Vaccines for economic recovery

However, he expressed optimism that the rollout of vaccines in Africa could quicken economic recovery, commending the COVAX facility, which is making provision of the jabs to African nations for free.

“The issue is that’s not all just negative, we project that Africa will grow back. We project 3.4 per cent grow back this year, but all of that is conditional on two things, one is access to vaccines, secondly the issue of debt.

“On the issue of access to vaccines, earlier on this show, I was listening to that, that is actually a big problem for us because we don’t have that luxury.

“So far, 14.6 million vaccines have been delivered in Africa. And people can’t even get shots in their hands. And that 14.6 million is only one per cent of what we need actually to get to 60 per cent of herd immunity.

“We are way off the mark on that. I think that’s important to improve access of Africa to vaccines. We need to have vaccine solidarity, COVAX is doing a great job, but the amounts are still minuscule as far as we are concerned,” he said.

The prospect of herd immunity in Africa

On the possibility of having herd immunity in Africa, Mr Adesina said, “The faster we get the vaccines, the better. I just told you that we’ve got only one per cent right now in terms of people getting the jabs in their hands.

“So, to get herd immunity, you need 60 per cent. So, you’re looking at least 840 million doses. So, it’s going to take — I don’t see that happening for another year or two because of the slow pace of producing the vaccine and getting them out.

“It just going to be very, very difficult and I’m quite concerned about that. And of course, the longer it takes for Africans to get vaccinated, of course now you see Europe saying you can’t travel if you don’t have the vaccine passports, people are going to think Africa is the last zone to get access to vaccines. I don’t want that to happen.

“So, for us at the African Development Bank, we also have to look beyond the current situation, looking medium term and also long term.”

Vaccine production in Africa

Concerning the prospect of the vaccines being produced on the continent, the AfDB chief wondered why “that 1.4 billion people have to be running from pillar to post looking for vaccines.

“We at the African Development Bank have therefore decided that we’re going to support Africa to have quality health care infrastructure and also make sure that it develops its own pharmaceutical capacity. We ought to be producing vaccines in Africa.”

Economic outlook

Mr Adesina said, “The GDP (gross domestic product) of Africa went down by $175 billion. We’ve never seen anything like this before. We projected last year -2.1 per cent that is the lowest growth rate in 50 years in Africa. You don’t see the virus, but the effects of it, it’s just so mind-boggling.

“We project that Africa will grow back. We project 3.4 per cent grow back this year.”