Speaking at the Financing Africa Summit at Grande Palais Ephemere, President Muhammadu Buhari, called on European countries and other foreign lenders to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic by restructuring debt portfolios.
This was disclosed by the Senior Special Assistant to the president, Garba Shehu, in a Twitter thread.
Buhari, at the conference, urged global financial institutions to support African economies recover from the pandemic by bringing about reliefs and distributing vaccines to the continent, as it lagged behind others.
He noted that global economies were impacted by the fall in commodity prices due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with economic activities slowed and health facilities strained.
The president appealed to the French Government to use its influence in the European Union to marshall resources to support developing nations.
Buhari said, “It is in this vein that we solicit the support of the French government with its influence in the European Union to lend its voice to the efforts being made to mobilize additional resources for developing economies most especially Africa in order to strengthen the quantum of investments to our economies. This financial support should also be extended to the private sector.”
READ ALSO: Emefiele Predicts Production Growth With Ekiti Rice Pyramid
Recently, it was revealed that Africa had received less than 2 percent of the 690 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered globally.
With this in view, President Buhari urged the European Union to create a free and equitable distribution system of vaccines in developing countries.
He added that the Debt Suspension Service initiated by the French Government that serves as a debt relief system for African countries was not enough.
He proffered that there should be a financing framework that was more sustainable and affordable.
On the collaboration between the Federal Government and the private sector, Buhari said, “The government intends to leverage on Public Private Partnership to bolster its job creation, and anti-corruption drive. In terms of job creation, Nigeria has an abundant labour force since 30.5 percent of its population is between the ages of 25 and 54.”
