ADDIS ABABA, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Effective COVID-19 lockdown exit strategy is an essential imperative in order to revive African economies from the adverse impact of the pandemic, a senior United Nations (UN) official said.
Speaking exclusively to Xinhua, Antonio Pedro, Director of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) Sub-regional Office for Central Africa, stressed that the ECA is collaborating African governments in crafting effective COVID-19 lockdown exit strategies, which he described as an "essential imperative" in order to build back African economies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Many of the two-decade-long gains that countries in the continent have made because of macroeconomic stability and reforms that have generated robust growth level GDP across the continent are now completely undermined," Pedro said in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua.
"We have done analysis on the COVID-19 lockdown exit strategies with a view to providing our members with comparative experience on how countries across the globe are exiting form the lockdown measures that they have adopted," the ECA Director said.
Pedro further stressed that COVID-19 lockdown exit strategies are also "essential to ensure that we don't aggravate our COVID-19 infection rate by quickly running to exiting lockdown measures because of economic imperatives."
Noting that balancing the nexus between exiting lockdown measures to mitigate economic impacts and containing the spread of COVID-19 "is not an easy proposition," the ECA official also stressed that the process requires collaboration among all stakeholders.
Noting the need to build African economies from the impacts of COVID-19, Pedro said that recent UNECA assessment projected that the continental socioeconomic and health responses require a total of 200 billion U.S. dollars -- 100 billion U.S. dollars for socioeconomic response and 100 billion U.S. dollars for health response.
Pedro also called on the global community to strengthen solidarity in order to effectively contend the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe as well as to build back better after the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the ECA official, the global solidarity against the COVID-19 "is important because if we do not address the pandemic in Africa, it will affect the entire planet."
He also stressed that the UNECA is exerting its efforts to engage with international financial institutions, the Group of 20 (G20) and others "in recognition to the fact that we need global engagement and global support with a view to addressing the impact of COVID-19."
The number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases across Africa reached 115,346 as the death toll hit 3,471 as of Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, 46,426 people have also recovered from the infectious virus, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
The ECA, in its recent report on the impact of COVID-19 in Africa, had recently projected that between 300,000 and 3.3 million Africans could lose their lives as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pedro's remarks on building Africa's socio-economic condition back to normal through an effective national COVID-19 lockdown exit strategies also came days after the UNECA projection that a one-month full lockdown across Africa would cost the continent about 2.5 percent of its annual GDP, equivalent to about 65.7 billion U.S. dollars per month.
Earlier this month, a UNECA report entitled "COVID-19: Lockdown Exit Strategies for Africa," which indicated that at least 42 African countries applied partial or full lockdowns in their quest to curtail the pandemic, mainly proposed to African nations various COVID-19 exit strategies following the imposition of lockdowns that helped suppress the virus but with devastating economic consequences.
The report, among other things, proposed seven exit strategies that provide sustainable, albeit reduced, economic activity. The report also sets out some of the exit strategies being proposed and tried around the world and outlines the risks involved for African countries.
The report also argued that the lockdowns brought "serious challenges" for African economies, including a drop in demand for products and services, lack of operational cash flow, reduction of opportunities to meet new customers, business closures, issues with changing business strategies, a decline in worker production and productivity from working at home, and difficulties in obtaining supplies of raw materials essential for production.
The ECA also indicated that the most sensitive issues facing policymakers is the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on food security. Enditem
