Six on History: Africa
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"The U.N.-backed COVAX vaccine facility was supposed to be a game changer. But with less than ten percent of Africans vaccinated — well short of the African Union’s goal of 60% by the end of this year — Strive Masiyiwa, the head of the Union’s vaccination effort, says the continent can no longer rely on donations and vaccines produced abroad to fight disease. Masiyiwa tells POLITICO’s Ryan Heath about his negotiations with the Indian government after he realized they would no longer be exporting vaccines to Africa — and why that moment convinced him the only thing left to do was to build out a vaccine infrastructure back home.
On the difference between what wealthier countries have pledged and have been willing to part with during the coronavirus pandemic“What we understood to be equitable treatment is obviously not the way the rich nations looked at it. From the perspective of the rich nations, it meant we get [vaccines] first. And when we've done with saving our own people, we will then attend to you. We thought that vaccines would become available.” — Strive Masiyiwa, the head of the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team and the founder and executive chair of Econet
“It was alarm bells everywhere as we realized that the COVAX deliveries out of these huge Indian factories would not come through … I'm not going to beat up on India. The bottom line is those who had the production assets are the ones who could vaccinate their people.”
On the secondary consequences of the coronavirus pandemic“Now, when you're having to lock down the poorest people who live on $2 a day, the economic, social and mental health issues and social cohesion are horrendous. Never mind the loss of life for a moment. So we are beginning to see a lot of issues, which I think are being amplified by these particularly rising tensions, conflicts that we hadn't seen for a very long time ... we've had five or six coups in just the last 18 months, which is more than I've seen in a generation. Now is this a causality? I'm not a social scientist — we’ll know in due course — but certainly the economic stress on our people ... when you consider the fact that we have no stimulus packages ... we cannot help people.”
" ... AVAT and COVAX are focused on accelerating access to and rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa. Together we are rapidly expanding supply to the continent, and providing countries with the support to be able to utilise the doses they receive. To date, over 90 million donated doses have been delivered to the continent via COVAX and AVAT and millions more via bilateral arrangements.
However, the majority of the donations to-date have been ad hoc, provided with little notice and short shelf lives. This has made it extremely challenging for countries to plan vaccination campaigns and increase absorptive capacity. To achieve higher coverage rates across the continent, and for donations to be a sustainable source of supply that can complement supply from AVAT and COVAX purchase agreements, this trend must change.
Countries need predictable and reliable supply. Having to plan at short notice and ensure uptake of doses with short shelf lives exponentially magnifies the logistical burden on health systems that are already stretched. Furthermore, ad hoc supply of this kind utilises capacity – human resources, infrastructure, cold chain – that could be directed towards long-term successful and sustainable rollout. It also dramatically increases the risks of expiry once doses with already short shelf-lives arrive in country, which may have long-term repercussions for vaccine confidence.
Donations to COVAX, AVAT, and African countries must be made in a way that allows countries to effectively mobilise domestic resources in support of rollout and enables long-term planning to increase coverage rates. We call on the international community, particularly donors and manufacturers, to commit to this effort by adhering to the following standards, beginning from 1 January 2022:
- Quantity and predictability: Donor countries should endeavour to release donated doses in large volumes and in a predictable manner, to reduce transaction costs. We acknowledge and welcome the progress being made in this area, but note that the frequency of exceptions to this approach places increased burden on countries, AVAT and COVAX.
- Earmarking: These doses should be unearmarked for greatest effectiveness and to support long-term planning. Earmarking makes it far more difficult to allocate supply based on equity, and to account for specific countries’ absorptive capacity. It also increases the risk that short shelf-life donations utilise countries’ cold chain capacity – capacity that is then unavailable when AVAT or COVAX are allocating doses with longer shelf lives under their own purchase agreements.
- Shelf life: As a default, donated doses should have a minimum of 10 weeks shelf life when they arrive in-country, with limited exceptions only where recipient countries indicate willingness and ability to absorb doses with shorter shelf lives.
- Early notice: Recipient countries need to be made aware of the availability of donated doses not less than 4 weeks before their tentative arrival in-country.
- Response times: All stakeholders should seek to provide rapid response on essential information. This includes essential supply information from manufacturers (total volumes available for donation, shelf life, manufacturing site), confirmation of donation offer from donors, and acceptance/refusal of allocations from countries. Last minute information can further complicate processes, increasing transaction costs, reducing available shelf life and increasing risk of expiry.
- Ancillaries: The majority of donations to-date do not include the necessary vaccination supplies such as syringes and diluent, nor do they cover freight costs - meaning these have to be sourced separately – leading to additional costs, complexity and delay. Donated doses should be accompanied with all essential ancillaries to ensure rapid allocation and absorption.
AVAT, Africa CDC and COVAX remain committed to collaborate with donor countries, vaccine manufacturers and partners on ensuring these standards are upheld, as we continue to work together towards achieving Africa’s vaccination goals."
" At a small house outside of Nairobi, Kenya, a big event took place on a late October afternoon — one that also has big repercussions for climate change. Winifred Mumbua Muisyo got electricity at her home for the first time.
An installer from the solar company d.light climbed onto her metal roof and attached a small solar panel. He then began connecting the appliances that come with it: several lights, a phone charger and a small television.
As a small-scale farmer living with her three kids, Muisyo had been relying on kerosene lanterns until now. The electric grid doesn't reach her neighborhood an hour outside the capital. With more than 700 million people worldwide without electricity, Muisyo's decision is key to limiting heat-trapping emissions. Using solar means her power won't come from fossil fuels.
The light bulbs turning on in Muisyo's home also are directly tied to high-level climate talks going on in Glasgow, Scotland. Some of the financing d.light received comes from "climate finance" funds from wealthier nations. Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, industrialized countries promised $100 billion dollars per year to help developing countries switch to renewable energy, limit their emissions and adapt to climate change impacts.
Developed countries recognized that poorer nations have done little to cause climate change, but are bearing the brunt of the impacts. Still, wealthier countries have yet to hit the funding goal. In 2019, they only provided about $80 billion. Developing countries say not enough went to the most vulnerable nations or to help them prepare for impacts that are already being felt, like more extreme storms and droughts.
The shortfall has created a major rift between richer and poorer countries at the Glasgow climate talks. While the U.S., Japan and others have pledged new funding, developing nations say there are few concrete details that lead them to believe these promises are different.
"The reality of climate change is hitting us already," says Saleemul Huq, director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh. "We are not rising to the urgency of the emergency we are in. The reality is going to wipe us out."
Gaining electricity and skipping fossil fuelsFor Muiyso's family, the biggest change a solar system brings is after sunset. Solar energy is stored in a battery, so at night, it powers an outdoor light and indoor lights for her kids to do homework.
"Solar provides a way to get people immediate access to energy and do it in a way that is completely sustainable because now you're not burning coal or fossil fuels to provide that energy," says d.light CEO Ned Tozun.
Part of d.light's success follows a winding path that leads all the way to international climate diplomacy. D.light was invested in by KawiSafi Ventures, a fund that specializes in renewable energy in developing countries. KawiSafi got funding from the Green Climate Fund, one of the ways that developed countries deploy their climate finance commitments. Through that fund, more than $10 billion from almost 50 countries has gone to a huge range of projects, from low-pollution buses in Pakistan to sustainable agriculture in Morocco.
"It's really been quite catalytic," Tozun says. "Before a lot of those funds were available, it was really, really difficult to raise money for expansion."
A global fund for climate inequityPromises for the $100 billion began 12 years ago at a time when tensions between developed and developing countries were running high at climate talks. The inequity of climate change was becoming starkly clear. Going back to the Industrial Revolution, the U.S. and Europe have emitted the majority of heat-trapping gases. Poorer countries have contributed very little, but are still facing devastating impacts.
"It's a moral case," Huq says. "You caused the problem. We are suffering because of you causing the problem. It's your pollution."
Wealthier nations agreed that by 2020, $100 billion a year would come from both government and private sources. The funds would go to "mitigation" projects that help countries reduce their emissions, as well as "adaptation" projects which make communities better prepared for stronger storms, floods and other extremes.
Developing countries asked for a 50/50 split between the categories, but thus far, only around 20-25% of funding has been allocated to adaptation. Much of the funding has come in the form of loans as well. That works for projects like selling renewable energy, which create a revenue stream to pay the loan back. But for adaptation projects like building flood protection, developing countries have no easy way to make payments.
"For poor people to adapt to floods and cyclones and droughts, they can't repay that," Huq says. "So, that doesn't work with loans. That has to come as grants."
Broken goal means broken trustIn the lead up to the Glasgow talks, the U.S. announced a new climate finance commitment: $11.4 billion per year by 2024. Under former President Trump, the U.S. had withdrawn much of climate finance funding.
Other countries also announced new pledges. Japan offered up to $10 billion over 5 years in additional funding, along with announcements from Norway, Spain and Sweden. In the weeks before the negotiations, developed countries estimated that the earliest the $100 billion goal would be reached is 2023. With the new funds, U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry estimates it could happen by 2022.
Developing countries aren't convinced.
"So far the progress here is disappointing and in a way, also frightening," says Sonam Wangdi of Bhutan, who chairs the Least Developed Countries, a coalition of the 46 poorest countries. "These figures cannot be verified. They're not that authentic. And we cannot wait any longer. We would like to request governments to stop skirting responsibility."
Many of the pledges lack concrete details or timelines, so experts say it's difficult to verify when the goal will be reached. Nations haven't settled on a uniform definition of what climate finance is, so some funding may be drawn from previous pledges. In the U.S., the Biden Administration still needs Congress to approve its spending before it becomes a reality.
"The fact that countries are stepping up, in terms of responding to the specific and concrete asks, is a positive development in general," says Lorena Gonzalez, a senior associate for climate finance the World Resources Institute. "If they might consider front-loading some of those resources for 2022, 2023, that could make a difference. But we don't know those kinds of details yet."
Gonzalez says the $100 billion isn't just about the tangible impacts on the ground. It's also a "symbolic element of trust" in the climate talks. Without a credible timeline to reach the goal, developing nations have little reason to have faith in the process. Even with the climate funding that's already pledged, there are many barriers to getting it.
"Access is a huge problem," Wangdi says. "If you have a climate disaster and you apply for a loan, it takes 4 to 5 years. It doesn't make sense. You are not able to help your people."
Even when the $100 billion goal is met, experts say it falls far below the need that countries face as they experience increasing damage from costly disasters.
