The African Development Bank (AfDB) announced today that it has already delivered nearly 1.8 billion euros to 10 African countries to combat a covid-19 pandemic, which has reduced gross domestic product by $ 88.3 million.
According to Lusa’s calculations based on information available on the amounts allocated to some African countries, the AfDB has already delivered 1,790 million euros, with Cape Verde or the only Portuguese-speaking country benefiting from multilateral financial support.
Egypt, with 440 million euros, is the country that most helps, followed by Nigeria, with 288.5 million euros and Morocco, with 264 million euros.
“AfDB responded quickly to the needs of its member countries during a covid-19 pandemic,” reads a note sent to Lusa, which estimates between $ 22.1 million and $ 88.2 million or the economic impact of the pandemic .
“African countries, with the experience of having received or Ebola, are working to adapt to this new threat and expect the bank to respond to an effective and multilateral crisis,” the statement added.
AfDB stresses that financial aid has reached five African regions and not “support will allow emergency cash payments to millions of people who have been affected by mass ‘layoffs’ or not using homework due to confinement measures” .
In March, the bank issued a debt of 3 million dollars (2.6 million euros), followed by the announcement, in early April, of an emergency assistance of 2 million dollars (1, EUR 7 million) to the World Health Organization to increase the capacity of member countries in prevention, testing and case management.
Then, on April 9, he announced a financial instrument worth up to $ 10 million, almost € 9 million, to help governments and the private sector deal with a pandemic and “mitigate the suffering of the economic crisis and loss of jobs “.
The African continent recorded 6,244 deaths in the covid-19 in more than 232,000 cases, according to the African Union’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
Leading economic institutions point to a recession in the sub-Saharan region, the first in decades, with the International Monetary Fund estimating a GDP contraction of more than 1.6%.
The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 431,000 deaths and infected more than 7.8 million people in 196 countries and territories, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December in Wuhan, a city in central China.
After Europe succeeded China as the center of the pandemic in February, the American continent is now the one with the most confirmed cases and the most deaths.
