It’s no secret that vaccinating a large number of people will require a lot of money. In fact, it has been estimated that sub-Saharan Africa alone would require $10.3 billion to get 60% of people vaccinated by this year, 2022. The problem is that many countries have strong fiscal constraints created through years of debt accumulation and relatively low gross domestic products. Not to mention the fact that on average, only 7% of African domestic government spending in 2019 was devoted to healthcare, compared to the 14% among the high-income countries of the world. So you see how it could have a problem when the pandemic emerged and African governments had to suddenly deal with the economic impacts of the pandemic and the subsequent vaccination demands. Nevertheless, some vaccination has happened on the continent and is still happening, which means that funds were made available somehow. But how? What sources of funding have African countries turned to? In what ways can the continent ensure sustainable vaccine financing in the future?
Guest: Danielle Serebro, Acting Programme Manager at the Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative.
In this episode we discussed several key points including:
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