Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for this renewed opportunity to address you since the Spring Meetings.

African countries through a coordinated Continental strategy have shown singular resilience.

But this resilience is matched by that of the pandemic, taking its toll on our health, livelihoods and economies.

As we continue to respond to the pandemic and its socio-economic impacts, Africa is also working to ensure access to vaccines for at least 60% of our populations, as soon as they become available on the market.

We welcome and support GAVI’s COVAX initiative, which aims to make available vaccines for up to 23% of Africa’s population.

In order to reach our targets and continue to implement our strategy, Africa needs to mobilize billions of dollars in additional financing.

We are grateful for the 12 billion dollar support from the World Bank to fast track financing to countries for the purchase and deployment of COVID19 vaccine; And here the need for speed to ensure this pledged support reaches where it is needed, remains as urgent as it was five months ago.

We can and must do more.

A matter of priority now is the issuance of Special Drawing Rights to Africa. During the 2009 global financial crisis, the international community rightly threw out the rulebook and increased Special Drawing Rights from twenty-one billion to over two hundred and ten billion dollars.

Despite this dramatic increase, Africa received only 6%, it’s then IMF quota. We ask for increased SDR’s and a re-allocation from countries that do not need SDR’s to those that do. With your support, Special Drawing Rights can prove decisive in ensuring that the pandemic does not reverse Africa’s development investments of the last three decades. In this regard, I want to thank the IMF and its leadership for the extraordinary effort; between April and August it disbursed about 24 billion dollars in concessional loans.

On the issue of debt, Africa requests an extension on the moratorium until the end of 2021, plus the widening of its scope of action, which is very limited today.

Les ministres des finances africains ici présents et qui sont aux prises aux difficultés quotidiennes des pays, vous expliqueront avec beaucoup plus de relief la situation et les attentes de l’Afrique.

And as I said in April, Africa asks for equity based on collective global action organised against a shared vulnerability against this truly exceptional global event.

Thank you.