Chinelo Anohu, AIF director, seeks establishment of vaccine plants in Africa

Chinelo Anohu, senior director of the Africa Investment Forum (AIF), an initiative of the African Development Bank (AfDB), says the continent should look into setting up vaccine plants.

She said this while speaking at the ‘Edinburgh Futures Conversations: The Future Economy’, a virtual conference organised by the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.

According to her, while it would be good for Africa to be given vaccines, the continent needs more of investments to become self-reliant.

She said Africa is getting tired of receiving aid, adding that it would be more beneficial for the continent to take charge of its future.

“I think there needs to be a paradigm shift from the way we look at collaboration. Africa is increasingly getting tired of asking for aid when in all honesty we can trade. And that is what we’re now looking to provide at the Africa Investment Forum, a flagship initiative of the African Development Bank, where both domestic and international investors who are looking to invest for profit, while fulfilling a need, are mobilised to finance projects,” she said.

“Therein lies a moral obligation to be our brother’s keeper, but whether we are doing that or not is playing out in this matter of vaccine equity. So, quite frankly, from this side in Africa, I’m not certain that it will happen. So, what you’re seeing now on the continent is a realisation that you have an option not to wait to be given, but to take your future into your own hands.

“A couple of years ago, it was Ebola ravaging the continent. Now it is COVID-19. There may be something else in the future. How do we then position Africa to very clearly respond to their own needs without a dependence on aid?

“So, rather than looking to be given vaccines developed in those labs outside Africa by people, some of whom are of African descent who did not have infrastructure to do it on the continent, we should be looking at setting up these vaccine plants on the continent.

“Our call now to the rest of the world is to join us, not as aid givers, but as investment partners so that we can quite clearly chart the course for the future.”

Also speaking at the event, which held on October 12, Gordon Brown, former UK prime minister, expressed concern over the poor vaccination rate in Africa, and called for improvement in equitable distribution of the vaccines.