Kenyan President, Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta, and former Nigerian president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, have called for closer collaboration among African leaders to deepen Africa’s post-pandemic recovery efforts and find answers to the continent’s growth and development challenges.

Both leaders recognised the prominent role played by Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the Africa COVID-19 Fund and the joint Africa procurement platform in COVID-19 response as a demonstration of the continent’s potential to overcome its development challenges.

They spoke during a webinar on post-COVID-19 reconstruction organised by the African chapter of the International Summit Council for Peace (ISCP-Africa).
Kenyatta urged African leaders to continue working together in crafting interventions and solutions that would enhance the resilience of the continent’s vulnerable populations.

“We should work in collaboration with our development partners to build capacity for local production of health equipment and to strengthen our local manufacturing capacity more generally,” he said.

He also observed that African leaders had for the first time, extended their cooperation and collaboration by taking joint actions with nations of the Caribbean community.

Earlier, Jonathan as chairman of the forum had said African leaders must come together to collectively confront the challenges facing the continent, especially social, economic and governance issues.

He said: “The COVID-19 pandemic places urgency of actions on African leaders to move from plans to implementations of the different developmental strategies. I am particularly optimistic that conversations such as this will chart a new course towards building a new world; an interdependent peaceful and just nations of Africa.”