Did US secretary of State mean it when he said Washington will not dictate Africa’s choices?

These efforts are making a lasting difference in the lives of millions of Africans. That’s what we’ve seen during the pandemic, when, in addition to providing more than 170 million doses of safe, effective COVID vaccines to African countries – free of charge and with more to come – the health systems we’ve built together over decades have saved countless lives. Clinics that we’ve built together have tended to people with the most severe COVID cases. Community health workers we helped train have gone door to door, getting jabs into arms. Research partnerships that we’ve co-developed have led to breakthroughs in identifying new variants of COVID and treatments.

Meanwhile, our partnerships with national and regional health institutions – like the Africa CDC – have helped detect and respond to new outbreaks like our recent collaboration with Ghana to contain that country’s first case of Marburg disease.

And where the pandemic has also exposed gaps, we’re working to address them together.

Back in February, I brought together foreign ministers from 40 countries – including Minister Pandor – as well as multilateral bodies like the African Union. We put together a Global Action Plan that defines key priorities, like ensuring more equitable distribution of vaccines, and we set concrete targets. Then we divided up responsibility among our nations to meet those targets, drawing on our complementary strengths. And we’re getting together regularly to make sure that we’re tracking our progress.

Together with South Africa, Indonesia, and other G20 members, we also stood up a historic new fund at the World Bank and the World Health Organization for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. This will be critical in providing sustainable support to strengthen the health security of countries and regions in need and break the cycle of crisis and neglect. We go through this every time: major crisis; we rally; we mobilize; the crisis is over; we go back to business as usual. We can’t afford to do that, and we won’t.

We’ve also heard the desire of African countries for vaccine self-sufficiency. We’re working together to help you achieve it. In November, I visited one of the vaccine production facilities that we’re helping support in Senegal. And just last month, the U.S. National Institution of Allergy and Infectious Diseases teamed up with Afrigen to share technical expertise on the development of next-generation mRNA vaccines as well as therapeutics, and that is happening right here in South Africa.

All of this collaboration is in our mutual interest because – as the pandemic has demonstrated – as long as any of us are at risk, all of us are at risk.

That brings me to the final area where our partnership is crucial: leading a clean energy transition that saves our planet, adapts to the effects of climate change, and provides energy to power economic opportunity.

The United Nations recognizes Africa as the most vulnerable region in the world to the effects of climate. Not too long ago, we had to imagine those effects. Today, we’re living them. You saw it in April, when catastrophic flooding killed more than 400 people around Durban. Storms like the ones that caused those floods are now twice as likely to occur due to climate change, and that will only increase in frequency and intensity as the Earth continues to warm. As in the United States, the people who are already struggling are being hit the hardest.

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