Africa faces significant challenges in accessing high-quality pharmaceuticals, exacerbating a continued high burden of disease. The availability of essential drugs in the public sector across the continent has been reported to be less than 60 per cent. One factor contributing to this shortfall is Africa’s heavy reliance on imported medicines.

The Index evaluates regional integration on the basis of five dimensions – trade integration, productive integration, macroeconomic integration, infrastructural integration, and integration in terms of free movement of people – for 54 African countries and for the eight RECs recognised by the African Union.

The 2019 Africa Regional Integration Index (ARII) assesses the regional integration status and efforts of countries that are members of the eight regional economic communities recognised by the African Union. It compares each country to the other countries in its regional economic community and to the countries of Africa as a whole.

It is too early to know the full impact of COVID-19 on Africa. To date the experience has been varied. There are causes for concern, but also reasons for hope. Early estimates were pessimis­tic regarding the pandemic’s impact on the conti­nent.

The Covid-19 crisis has exposed the deep and systemic deficiencies of the global economic regulatory system and associated national vulnerabilities at a time of great distress.

In the current context of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, policymakers are confronted with decisions that may prove to be among the most difficult of their careers. To contain the COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented measures are being taken globally.

Anywhere between 300,000 and 3.3 million African people could lose their lives as a direct result of COVID-19, depending on the intervention measures taken to stop the spread.

Covid-19 is a global problem to which some of the usual global solutions, like trade, can help. Trade remains a powerful, low-cost tool to improve access to medical supplies and expertise, and support economic resilience.

The United Nations and the African Union need to do more to ensure all Africans see their futures in the sustainable development goals and the goals of Africa’s Agenda 2063, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed said.

The Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the body widely recognized as the international authority on climate change — give clear evidence of increased warming across Africa. The reports put forward a powerful case that increases in global temperatures are the result of human-induced climate change.