Africa-Press – Tanzania. Tanzania Ambassador to China Mbelwa Kairuki has called upon International communities to refrain from discriminating African countries that have detected the new variant of Covid-19 of Omicron.
He made the call during the Imperial Springs International Forum held in Guangzhou, China on Monday, pointing out that collaborative efforts to contain the new variant was important.
“Immediately after the 2019 forum, the world faced the test of our generation with the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic and the pandemic has put to the test our commitment to multilateralism.
“Such was evident even recently with this new variant- OMICRON when we witnessed what the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres called COVID-19 xenophobia,” said Ambassador Kairuki.
According to him, the world has witnessed unilateral actions taken against particular African countries that did the right thing by detecting the variant and informing the international community.
He added that “Instead of being praised, they were punished. Let the truth be told, ‘singling out African countries’ with travel bans as being unfair, non-scientific and discriminatory. This is not the way we are going to win together.”
The Ambassador was of the view that past experience from the first variant and wave to the current one had proven that the world can overcome the variant and a wave and ultimately prevail.
“Such is only possible when we work together. To tackle the current pandemic, we need to continue working together to support the World Health Organization so that it may be an effective global institution,” he noted.
Mr Kairuki, however, underscored the need for countries to give WHO a strong political backing from the highest levels of the governments.
Similarly, there is a need to commit more finance for pandemic preparedness and response, stressing on Prof Jeffrey Sachs proposal of having in place a Global Health Fund that could fund poor countries to achieve universal health coverage.
Besides, the world needs a science cooperation fund for research and development of vaccines and therapeutics in a cooperative way with institutions from the Global South, where there is limited capacity and resources.
The Ambassador maintained that achieving the above will indeed reshape the global governance system for the better.
“This is what my country, Tanzania, believes and stands for. In her address to the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly, President Samia Suluhu Hassan said ‘our countries are deeply intertwined, and that unilateralism will not get us anywhere when it comes to challenges that transcend our national borders. Alone, one will go fast, but together we will go far’. Multilateralism must always prevail, “he said, noting that the President believes in rule-based multilateralism and global governance based on the principles enshrined in the UN Charter.
He applauded China for walking the talk since the start of the pandemic, through their support to many countries around the world especially those in the global south to face the pandemic.
“President Xi Jinping mentioned in his opening address, if we are to successfully address the global challenges that we are facing today, we must embrace openness, inclusiveness, consultation and cooperation.
“To achieve this, we need strong politics from all the parties and we need to move from talking to action,” quoted Ambassador Kairuki.
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