Make COVID-19 vaccine available to all, Akufo-Addo urges world powers

President Akufo-Addo charges global leaders to ensure that, should a vaccine be found for COVID-19, it will be made available to all countries, rich and poor

Wilberforce Asare September 23, 2020

4,808

President Akufo-Addo addresses the UN General Assembly — President Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has called on world leaders to ensure that, in the event that a vaccine for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is found, it should be made available to the entire world and not the rich few.

There has been a debate among superpowers as to who will be first in line for a COVID-19 vaccine when one is discovered. US health officials hope by late next month to have draft guidance on how to ration initial doses, but it is a vexing decision and developing world countries are those that will probably be discriminated against most, should a vaccine be found.

Addressing the v0irtual 75th United Nations General Assembly via a pre-recorded clip today (23 September 2020, President Akufo-Addo said the whole world has been affected badly by the COVID-19 pandemic and so all countries must rise out of it together.

“Mr President, the lessons are clear. We all fell together and looked into the abyss together. Even as we closed our borders and shut airports, reality dawned on all of us that we had to rely on each other to be able to get out of the trouble that we were in. We have all gone down together. We should all rise together,” President Akufo-Addo said.

“If the answer to this pandemic lies in finding a vaccine, that vaccine should be made available to the whole world, rich and poor alike, developed and developing, all races and all beliefs,” the president added.

Election 2020

Of the 7 December general election in Ghana, the eighth of its kind under the nation’s Fourth Republican constitution, President Akufo-Addo said he is convinced that his government will ensure a free, fair and peaceful election.

“The political season is at its height here in Ghana as we prepare for parliamentary and presidential elections in December. Like everything else in our world today, even the politicking has been affected by the pandemic and we cannot campaign for votes in the style we are accustomed.

“It is a matter of great pride to me that in spite of the difficulties in conducting an election during a pandemic, I am able to state that all Ghanaians are agreed that we have to work together to ensure that the elections will be transparent, free, fair, safe and credible,” the president said.

To this end Akufo-Addo said that his government is “keenly aware of the reputation that Ghana has built as a tolerant and working democracy and, for that matter”, he has “every intention to nurture and improve on it”.

Finance for developing countries

Touching on the impact that COVID-19 has had on the world economy, and particularly that of the developing world, President Akufo-Addo said the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has signalled that the disease has brought “a significant reduction in the financing available to developing economies”.

The developed world and the United Nations thus have a responsibility to offer support to the developing world in order to help protect the gains made by developing countries.

“The restructuring of the global financing architecture to enable access to fresh capital by developing nations, now more than ever, is of immediate necessity,” Akufo-Addo said.

Click on the link to listen to the president’s address to the UN General Assembly: