Opening remarks by WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti at the WHO headquarters virtual press conference on 25 May 2020
Thank you very much Dr Tedros.
I’m very pleased to join this celebration of Africa Day today, and especially pleased to be in the company of Dr Samba Sow and Dr John Nkengasong who are our special envoys on COVID-19 in Africa. Thank you very much for having joined us Samba and John.
As Dr Tedros says this is the 57th anniversary of the creation of the Organization for African Unity, which later became the African Union, and I would like to join him in commending the leadership of the African Union and the actions of African political leaders in response to this pandemic.
Not only have they rallied strongly and created at the country level, all-of-government and all-of-society structures and mechanisms, but we have also seen the mobilization of the African private sector, both those who are in Africa and those who are working in the diaspora.
I would like also to extend my thanks to our fellow countrymen in the African diaspora, in the USA, the UK, and European countries who have joined our virtual work in training, sharing their knowledge and skills, in proposing innovations to contribute to the response to the pandemic in Africa and mobilizing their networks and their resources, and in stating their determination in continuing to support their families from wherever they are.
Dr Tedros has highlighted some of the progress made in recent months, and these achievements have built on years of work led by governments, with the support of WHO and our partners, like the Africa CDC, to prepare for and respond to severe and widespread epidemics, and also to work on strengthening and making more resilient the health systems in our countries.
In our efforts towards eradicating polio for example, we have used geographic information system technologies, and we have engaged communities who are able to alert the authorities when they start to see cases in their midst.
I would like here to pay special tribute to African communities. It was said by Dr Tedros, that our leaders have put in place some measures to control the pandemic. We have seen African countries take very tough decisions to put in place some of the control measures that are aimed at physical and social distancing and this has been at a high cost, they have recognized and acknowledged at the economic level in countries, but also very much at the level of individuals and households.
In a survey that we carried out in partnership with Africa CDC and Resolve, we found on interviewing people in 28 African cities that they accepted the need for some of these measures although many of them recognized it would be very tough on them, in their households, particularly if you take into account the proportion of African people that work in the informal sector, where you need to be out earning your money in order to be able to put food on the table. They have stated that they understood the need and were ready to comply with some of these measures, which were very challenging.
I’d like to very much commend and thank them for that, because we think that it is thanks to these measures that we have started to see, not the kind of evolution of the pandemic in Africa that we were projecting in some of our projection tools.
We are working with our partners, and I would like to thank here our humanitarian and United Nations partners, for the joint work that we are doing in the 13 African countries that are affected by conflict and insecurity.
Just to remind that the theme of Africa Day this year is “Silencing the Guns in the Context of COVID-19”, which reminds us that we have in this disease a common enemy, and while one country is vulnerable, all are at risk, and it reminds us again to work towards having peace so that the kind of risks that people encounter in insecure areas towards their health can be reduced. So, I’d like to thank very much those partners that are working to support the most vulnerable African communities in very difficult, sometimes conflict-affected regions, and say that we are there, we are committed to work with you.
I’ll end by wishing all of Africa’s people, whether we are in Africa or elsewhere, a Happy Africa Day, and let us continue with the amazing solidarity that has seen us progress thus far in our response to the pandemic.
Thank you very much Tedros.
Closing remarks
Thank you, I think what I would like to say is very much to support and echo your core message, of we are not complacent, so these apparently low numbers in Africa, the low proportion of the global cases that Africa represents, I think is in the context of very challenged systems were we to see a big wave of cases coming in the Region.
So, for me, this emphasizes the need for our governments to continue, to expand. We are advising them very strongly to decentralize the capacity both for the public health actions, and to organize capacity to provide care and treatment, while continuing to ensure the availability of essential services for populations.
So, it is just to say we encourage continuing, we will not also let down our guard at all, and we are absolutely determined to work with our partners: with the African Union, with professionals in Africa, with civil society, and very importantly with communities and people. It is our duty to help people understand and to help them feel empowered and enabled to take the actions that they need to take, because they are not the subject of government interventions, things work best if people themselves understand and take the actions that are needed.
So again, a shout out to African people, I thank them so much for the courage that they have shown, the forbearance under sometimes difficult circumstances, and we are committed to continue in this fight with them.