{"id":16543,"date":"2021-10-30T16:34:35","date_gmt":"2021-10-30T16:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paulkagame.com\/?p=16543"},"modified":"2021-10-30T16:39:26","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T16:39:26","slug":"g20-session-1-global-economy-and-global-health-remarks-by-president-kagame-30-october-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/?p=16543","title":{"rendered":"G20 Session 1: Global Economy and Global Health | Remarks by President Kagame | Rome, 30 October 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Prime Minister Mario Draghi, our host<\/li>\n<li>Excellencies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I am pleased to speak today on behalf of NEPAD, the African Union Development Agency.<\/p>\n<p>The Covid-19 pandemic cannot be brought under control without global vaccine equity, and this is also the precondition for economic recovery.<\/p>\n<p>Africans represent nearly 18% of the world\u2019s people, but less than 5% of Covid vaccine doses have reached our continent.<\/p>\n<p>Closing the gap has three components requiring active commitment by the G20, as has already happened.<\/p>\n<p>First, we must ensure a consistent supply of vaccines for low-income countries to meet the target of 70% vaccination by mid-2022.<\/p>\n<p>After a slow start, Covax deliveries have picked up, thanks to increased pledges from different countries, among them the United States, the European Union, and its member states, among others.<\/p>\n<p>Second, national health systems need to be upgraded to efficiently handle mass vaccination.<\/p>\n<p>Third, we have to build manufacturing capacity for vaccines in developing countries.<\/p>\n<p>Africa imports 99% of its vaccines. By 2040, we aim to produce 60%.<\/p>\n<p>This week, Rwanda and Senegal concluded agreements with BioNTech to build end-to-end mRNA vaccine production facilities, starting in mid-2022.<\/p>\n<p>Technology and know-how will be transferred to build the capacity of local companies, and the doses produced will be distributed in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>This is an important milestone in which the European Union and the African Union are also playing a key role.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, continued strengthening of the World Health Organization and Africa CDC is critical, along with support for the new African Medicines Agency.<\/p>\n<p>We would also do well to implement the clear and actionable recommendations of the G20 High-Level Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness, co-chaired by Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Lawrence Summers, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.<\/p>\n<p>I conclude with thanks to the Government of Italy and the people of Rome for the warm welcome and hospitality.<\/p>\n<p>I thank you, Prime Minister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Mario Draghi, our host Excellencies I am pleased to speak today on behalf of NEPAD, the African Union Development Agency. The Covid-19 pandemic cannot be brought under control without global vaccine equity, and this is also the precondition for economic recovery. Africans represent nearly 18% of the world\u2019s people, but less than 5% of Covid vaccine doses have reached our continent. Closing the gap has three components requiring active commitment by the G20, as has already happened. First,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speech","post-has-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16547,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16543\/revisions\/16547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}