“The private sector response is even more important in resource-constrained African countries. The pan-African business organization, AfroChampions—which was created to help fight Ebola—has launched a Covid-19 Response Fund in partnership with the African Union and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), aiming to raise over $400 million to support the continental response and procure the necessary medical supplies. The funds are being contributed by a coalition of African banks, including Ecobank, Standard Bank, and Equity Bank, several private equity firms, and healthcare companies.”

Started in March 2020, the initiative has already operated for some months under the supervision of the African Union through its public health institution Africa CDC, which determined priority interventions and actions. The interventions also dealt with the support of the most vulnerable sectors of the societies, for approximately US$50 million.

The funds are used to:

• “mitigate the socio-economic and humanitarian impact of COVID-19 in Africa;
• boost the capacity of Africa CDC to fully play its role as a continental public health institution; and
• support the procurement and distribution of essential COVID-19 medical equipment and supplies and mobilize rapid response by Member States [...] and to support the deployment of one million community workers and community healthcare workers to support contact tracing.”

“An advisory board consisting of public and private sector representatives has been established to oversee management of the Fund, together with an experts’ panel, both composed of committed parties with experience in fund-raising and public sensitization.  “The time has come for Africa to deploy forward-looking measures. We must start from now to strengthen our capacities in diagnostic tests, drug manufacturing and health infrastructure. Not only can the African private sector contribute to this fund, it should also consider other actions like prevention campaigns in companies, redeployment of production lines towards equipment and products needed against the pandemic, optimisation of transport and connectivity infrastructure to support health emergencies,” said Paulo Gomes, Vice Chair of the AfroChampions Initiative and former Executive Director at the World Bank, who joined the advisory board.

It must also be recalled that the AfroChampions initiative is a set of public-private partnerships designed to leverage resources and funds to create more multinational corporate champions in Africa and that it has proposed a US$1trn investment framework to support the goals of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) by 2030.