COVID-Blog

Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director, said  that "to fight COVID-19 and win, we must challenge inequalities. That's how we can sustain recovery."

She is pressing leaders to act on three important actions, including protecting and rewarding health workers fairly, and ending user fees. "We won't stop Covid-19, if some people can’t afford testing or treatment," she added. Thirdly, remove the burden of debt that still binds the hands of developing countries, not just by shifting repayments to next year but through cancellations.

Most low-income countries are already highly-indebted. Africa’s debt has been increasing every year and is now about 60% of the continent’s gross domestic product. "It is immoral to push highly-indebted countries to take more loans to fight an existential threat that the whole world is facing. A broad and coordinated debt relief process is urgently needed not only to respond to the Covid-19 crisis but to shorten the recovery period and create conditions for growth."