African Union Day 2

Effects of COVID-19 in South Africa

by Anne-Marie Barnes

The second day of the conference chaired by Mr. Aniruddh Rajendran and Miss Nefeli Despoina Gkaroutsou was honoured again by delegates from The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Republic of South Africa (S.A), Zimbabwe, Central African Republic (C.A.R), and Nigeria, who was early today. After the Chair acknowledged these distinguished delegates, the conference began with a motion from Zimbabwe to go into an unmoderated caucus of 20 minutes to discuss the topic for the day. With all delegates voting in favour of the motion, the unmoderated caucus began with the Delegate of Nigeria making known to other delegates; they were currently attempting to create their own vaccine to provide S.A with other alternatives to combat Covid-19. The Delegation of S.A. then asked all delegates what they thought would be the best options to helping solve their plight.

Beginning the response to Nigeria was the Delegate of Zimbabwe who made known they had released an economic revival plan, with some examples of these plans being, the creation of jobs and creation of new electricity. The Delegation of Zimbabwe stated they however felt the speech made by the Nigerian representative was too vague as the plan put in place in helping S.A seemed very ambitious and thought the plan will only play out in the next 10 years. They then reminded the Delegation of Nigeria on the quest to finding a plan that could be achieved in a year!

Coming in to calm the troubled waters was the Delegation of C.A.R who explicitly made it known to S.A that, they were to blame for the current happenings in their territory and only hoped for the best for the country and backing this was the Delegation of Ethiopia who again stated that, “If S.A had locked their borders on time, they would not have faced this!” whilst indirectly praising their country of closing their borders on time despite their country being the heart of Africa and also providing facemasks to their entire population. They again stated, “All information relating to the virus in our country was translated to local languages to fully inform the people”. The Delegation also went ahead to state emphatically on the hope of receiving more information from the Delegation of S.A regarding the issue and “probably let people in S.A work from home, wear facemasks and take a step forward to get the vaccine going”.

With Miss Nefeli alerting the Delegates of the unmoderated caucus time elapsing, with a motion being raised by the Delegate of Zimbabwe for an extra 10 minutes to an unmoderated caucus, the delegates continued on their quest to finding suitable and feasible solutions to S.A’s problem.

After several deliberations and with all delegates agreeing to a moderated caucus of 15 minutes, each country present gave their stance on the topic under a minute.

The Delegation of Zimbabwe taking the floor to share their stance on the matter made it known again that, with over 3 million people being affected by the virus, S.A had put extreme measures in place and felt these measures were not feasible as there was high level of poverty in a lot of areas in their country with majority of its citizens also depending on informal employment. The Delegation of Zimbabwe then educated the Delegation of S.A and other delegates present on a study related to the topic they came across which stated, “by the year 2030, 1 billion Africans will live in poverty” and followed this by saying their government was going to give S.A 18billion Zimbabwean Dollars to help alleviate their plight. They again stated, there was going to be a provision of 200 Zimbabwean dollars given to vulnerable families monthly and again develop an African wide network to help work rapidly in solving such issues.

Following up on this speech was the Delegation of S.A who acknowledged its position and stated, having 1.5 million cases in 2020, it was important to note cases in the country had dropped significantly to 15,000 and were proud of their achievement. They again stated, they had hope in the resolution and were going to help in the supply chain of the provision of vaccines.

Miss Nefeli opening the floor to all delegates had the Delegation of Ethiopia jumping in by making it known they were doing all they could to contain the spread of the virus in their territory and again made known that as part of the AU, they “believed all must work together as some countries have more means than others. They again threw ‘the ball of enquiry’ to the Delegation of S.A to make known what measures they were putting in place regarding the matter to know if they were the same as their country’s to inform them of the consequences that are likely to be seen which will help them know how to tackle it.

The Delegation off C.A.R ending the period of sharing stances on the matter began by making known their country having had little Covid-19 cases from the beginning with they not implementing any special plan or doing anything new like, shutting of their borders but were only fortunate to have less cases as they stuck to the use of herbs in treating its people which has been successful. They again made known they could only help the Republic of S.A by sharing ideas on how to curb the issue of which they shared some points like, having a 30 day lockdown and ensuring physical distancing but before these, urged the country to have a robust and functioning case testing and also work with its Ministry of Health to easily track cases through technology. They believed these suggestions would help as they being a very poor country, could not provide any substantial aid but for their ideas.

The Delegation of S.A agreeing with points made by C.A.R on their proposals, believed the plans must be employed in a realistic way. They then stated that, the delivery of vaccines from India had not seen the light of day and wanted a backup plan towards it. The Delegation of Nigeria asserting that the distribution of vaccines by S.A had been inefficient made it known they had two scientists working on vaccines and were willing to provide S.A with some of those vaccines to which the S.A representative asked the Delegation of Nigeria to further elaborate if their vaccines were going to be deployable in the next 6months.

The Chairman; Miss Nefeli then asked the Delegation of S.A to ask the Delegation of Nigeria personally as the floor had already been yielded to the Chair. Apologising to this mishap, the Delegation of S.A made it known to the Nigerian representative, they believed the production of their vaccine was going to be produced in the space of 1 to 2 years after they were given the floor by the Chair who asked if any delegates wanted to make a speech.

Moving into an unmoderated caucus of 20 minutes, the Delegation of Nigeria elaborated how the vaccines were being developed and how they were going to be allocated while still informing delegates of a 12month human trial but needed resources to help in the development of the vaccines as the country was facing domestic issues and hoped to receive Human Resource Aid.

The Delegation of C.A.R stating their belief of the health system in S.A being fragile thus believing responses should go beyond actions of the health sector had the Delegation of Ethiopia following up and letting out their curiosity stating they were “concerned about the developing of vaccines in Nigeria and wondering how they can produce vaccines for their entire population of over 200,000 and also contribute to S.A and other African nations on the vaccine they are developing!”. The Delegation of Ethiopia were then placed on a fence as the Delegation of Nigeria left the conference.

With the Delegation of S.A then thanking other delegates for their feasible ways of developing vaccines, shared their belief of the plan by Nigeria having the likelihood of being long-term and believed the handling of vaccines be done by their own resources and with the help of other international bodies as they believed aid was mismanaged by not only the International Monetary Fund but also by the Central Trade Organisation and stated, “receiving aid is a threat to our sovereignty”. They then clearly stated the best option being to work with their own resources to prevent any future problems.

Still finding solutions to the issue at hand, the Delegation of Nigeria welcomed back into the conference by the Chair followed up on the question asked by the Ethiopian representative stating they had “laid a plan in the distribution of the vaccines in certain provinces however wants to note that the province of the Hausa’s is at stake as the country is still fighting the famous terrorist group; Boko Haram” and also stated, “distribution is going to be focused on the Lagos region” and again chipped in on their need of aid.

With the sun slowly setting, and further deliberations being made by delegates, the Committee faced a Crisis which was cantered on the, “Ethnic Cleansing and Acts of Oppression in Ethiopia”.

Moving for a motion was the Delegation of S.A to go into an unmoderated caucus of 10minutes to learn the parameters of the topic with all delegates and with a simple majority, the motion passed!

Returning from a long break which clashed with the 10minutes unmoderated caucus, the Delegation of Ethiopia expressed their displease as they felt issues in Tigray was an internal affair and could not allow any interference! They then asked the Chair to leave the conference following a call from their ambassador thus was not going to make any further statements on the matter.

The Delegation of Zimbabwe then expressed their respect to the decision made by Ethiopia and asked their fellow delegates to then move on to continue finding a sustainable solution to the crisis at hand whiles thanking Ethiopia for all they have achieved so far and hopes a solution can be found for the crisis in their country.

Following a turn of events, the Delegation of Zimbabwe and S.A worked together to find a suitable resolution for the problem in S.A which they shared with the Chair and other delegates. With the Delegation of Nigeria and C.A.R presenting amendments to a few Clauses, and the Delegation of Zimbabwe making an amendment to the amendment made, all guests were sent out of the conference for a voting procedure to take place.

The Press on return, was given a little hint on activities that went on during the voting procedure as the Delegation of Somalia who joined the conference in its last minutes, was hoping there would not be a virtual fist fight as there was a close ‘division’ on the voting!

Having the 1st resolution passed and hoping for the 2nd to be passed tomorrow, we hope the discomfort and ‘disrespect’ the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia felt wanes before the continuation of the conference tomorrow and only prays they attend the conference as their input so far has been very well respected.