Cape Verdean Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva called for a recovery program for Africa from the crisis caused by the covid-19, with a global pact for forgiveness of foreign debt and access for all to the future vaccine.
When speaking at the 75th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN), the head of the Government of Cape Verde assumed that the covid-19 pandemic requires not only an “internal combat of each country”, but “the at the same time a global fight, which requires global collaborative solutions ”.
“Nobody wins with a more impoverished Africa, with the increase in humanitarian and security crises. Everyone wins if African countries have the necessary conditions to overcome the serious health, economic and social crisis caused by the covid-19, and enter a new era of structural transformations that positively impact economies and Human Development Indexes ”, said Ulisses Correia and Silva, in the pre-recorded message.
This meeting of the UN General Assembly, which takes place annually at the organization’s headquarters in New York, is taking place this year in different ways, with the leaders of the Member States speaking through pre-recorded messages due to the pandemic.
“It is in this context that equitable and universal access to the vaccine as an essential public good and the initiative for the forgiveness of external debt, must be the object of a Global Responsibility Pact so as not to leave anyone behind”, he appealed, starting from from the city of Praia, Ulisses Correia e Silva.
He warned that the pandemic “has further exacerbated inequality between developed and developing countries” and that “few countries in the world have enough savings to accommodate the extraordinary costs imposed” by this “global crisis”, and at the same time, recover and relaunch the economy.
“In the more developed countries, such as the European Union, a financial package of 750 billion euros was needed to support the Member States. The financial stimuli of the richest countries exceed hundreds of billions of dollars. And Africa? What about small island developing states? Are they able to bear the costs and the recovery and relaunch of their savings alone? Of course not, ”he said.
Hence, it understands “as necessary” the forgiveness of foreign debt, “not only to face the economic contraction and macroeconomic imbalances” caused by the pandemic, but “as a turning point to boost the sustainable development of African countries”, within “a strong commitment” to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In the case of Cape Verde, the Prime Minister assumed that this eventual forgiveness of the external debt (currently around 1,600 million euros) would allow the financing of the Strategic Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030, with “priority” for the development of human capital; health security, social housing and health; digital transformation; energy transition; water strategy for agriculture associated with renewable energies; blue economy; and sustainable tourism.
However, Cape Verde still defends a “differentiated approach” to the group of almost 40 small island developing States (SIDS), in view of the “great vulnerability to external economic and environmental shocks and heavy dependence on tourism, a sector strongly affected ”By the pandemic.
Ulisses Correia e Silva affirmed that the current political leaders “have an added responsibility and none, from any country, should be left behind”, given the “commitment to millions of young people who legitimately care about their future and that of their children and grandchildren that will come ”.
Hence to defend that the United Nations serve to “Unite Nations in the construction of the Future”, which “can only be achieved with the reaffirmation of the irreplaceable importance of multilateralism”.
