ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Strong global collaboration is urgently needed to contain the socioeconomic and healthcare impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Vera Songwe, said on Tuesday.
Speaking exclusively to Xinhua, the ECA chief stressed that the global community should augment collaboration in a bid to tackle the spread of the virus as well as the adverse socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic.
"Since none of us really knows the true extent and impact of the pandemic, we need strong global collaboration to be able to analyze and assess the impact and also study the virus as it's a new virus and we don't know it well enough," Songwe told Xinhua.
As the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly spreads across the African continent in recent weeks, the ECA Executive Secretary also stressed that the COVID-19 pandemic is now both a major economic as well as healthcare crisis across Africa.
"Africa was supposed to grow at 3.2 percent, but we are now estimating that growth on the continent will be, if we are lucky, somewhere around closer to 0 percent, even though nobody can predict this thing yet because we are getting different numbers every day," she said.
Noting a recent COVID-19 impact assessment study that was conducted by the UNECA, Songwe also stressed that the COVID-19-inflicted lockdown costs the African continent about 69 billion U.S. dollars per month in terms of GDP.
"It hits us first economically, costing us 69 billion U.S. dollars per month because we locked up to ensure that we could contain the health crisis of the COVID-19," she added.
As of Tuesday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the African continent has surged to 1,055,964 across the continent as the death toll from the pandemic rose to 23,582, according to the latest figures from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
Some 744,438 COVID-19 patients have also recovered from the virus across the continent so far, according to the Africa CDC.
"The COVID-19 pandemic is very expensive for a continent that could not afford it," Songwe said, as she emphasized the greater economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic-inflicted lockdown on African economies.
The adverse economic impacts of COVID-19 on African countries that were essentially dependent on remittance, tourism as well as the travel and hospitality sector.
Songwe also emphasized the urgent need to revive some of the economic sectors from the adverse impacts of COVID-19 so as to mitigate the economic impacts of the pandemic.
"Our economies have been severely hit. So we need to find ways of ensuring that we can at least keep some of the economic sectors open while managing the health pandemic, as this remains the tension we have on the continent," Songwe said.
Noting that the African continent "has done beyond its expectations" in the fight against the pandemic, Songwe also underscored the need for urgent fiscal resources so as to mitigate the greater economic impact of the COVID-19-induced lockdowns on African economies. Enditem
