Faki Mahamat was speaking during an open debate on addressing the root causes of conflict while promoting post-pandemic recovery in Africa.

African Union Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat has told a virtual meeting of the United Nations Security Council that vaccine protectionism and nationalism were endangering Africa’s social-economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Faki Mahamat was speaking during an open debate on addressing the root causes of conflict while promoting post-pandemic recovery in Africa.

He explained that development and security were more closely linked today than ever before and warned that 20 African economies faced a risk of collapse due to high debt burdens exacerbated by the pandemic.

The AU Commission Chair’s sobering remarks sounded the alarm that the economic consequences of the pandemic continue to be acute on a continent that is seeing rising infections and fatalities due in the main to low vaccine availability for the region.

Faki Mahamat says, “Today, the biggest challenge Africa is facing is the vaccine issue. It is a very big mistake to think that the world may be secure while the African continent is still lacking protection against the virus and its variants. We forgot that the world was globalised and that the pandemic is profoundly true. On the political front, there have been challenges in sustaining the necessary processes for implementing transition and peace agreements on the ground to prevent the collapse of African nations.”