175 former heads of state, Nobel Prize winners and other illustrious eminences added their support to the call for the U.S. government to mandate a relaxing of intellectual property laws to allow countries in the Global South to mass-produce vaccines without fear of being sued. One of the more revealing details in this discussion is that the mechanism for countries to use a health emergency to momentarily suspend intellectual property rights already exists ...
Country: African Union
How Would Africa Have Managed COVID-19 Without the Africa CDC? The Role of China
Two types of images have dominated the global media’s coverage of Africa the past year. The first has been pictures of cargo planes packed with medical supplies, framing Africa’s COVID response as handled through foreign aid by partners such as China. The other image has been of ...
Inclusion Talk and Its Limits
On Friday, the official White House Twitter account posted a brief video featuring a message from President Joe Biden to the African Union. In the message he expresses support for the AU summit, and solidarity with the peoples of Africa in dealing with crises like ...
China and the Africa Continental Free Trade Area: What Role For Beijing?
The January launch of the AfCFTA has prompted considerable reflection in both China and Africa as to what role Beijing can play in this new free trade era and whether China's role will be harmful or helpful. Predictably, Chinese commentators are ...
Gyude Moore: “The Success or Failure of the AfCTA Will Be on Us and Us Alone”
On January 1, the long-held dream of creating a pan-African free trade zone became a reality with the launch of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA). What makes this project unique, according to Center for Global Development Senior Policy Fellow Gyude Moore, is that this is ...
10 Issues That Will Shape China-Africa Relations in 2021
1. VACCINES: With the U.S., EU on the Sidelines, China's Vaccine Distribution in Africa Could Produce Huge Geopolitical Dividends China is building a COVID-19 vaccine distribution pipeline in Africa including a cold-chain air bridge from Shenzhen, a distribution hub in ...
Reuters: Suspected Chinese Hackers Stole AU Surveillance Video
For the second time in two years, China is being accused of spying on the headquarters of the African Union. A new report published today by the Reuters news service alleges that suspected Chinese hackers infiltrated AU servers and obtained video surveillance files from the ...
New Allegations That China Spied on the AU Spark a Flashback to Similar Accusations in 2018
Reuters' exclusive report that suspected Chinese hackers penetrated the African Union's IT networks to siphon off data prompted many to think "uh oh, here we go again," and recalling similar accusations back in 2018. In 2018,
China Accused (Again) of Spying on the African Union
Today's Reuters report that detailed how suspected Chinese hackers broke into African Union data networks to siphon off surveillance video sparked a whole new round of "I told you so." The initial reaction online to the report was essentially what do you ...
China, African Union Break Ground on New HQ For the Africa Centers for Disease Control
Senior African Union officials together with Chinese diplomats led a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday at the site of the new Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Just as with the African ...
This Graphic Shows the Huge Diplomatic Opportunity For China If It Can Provide Africa With Sufficient Supplies of C19 Vaccines
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Africa is going to be the last region around the world to secure sufficient supplies of COVID-19 vaccines to innoculate a majority of its population, according to data from the Economist Intelligence Unit. John Nkengasong, ...