Addressing a meeting of Heads of State and Government on Jobs and Social Protection for Poverty Eradication, the Egyptian premier called for intensifying international development cooperation, including in the field of COVID-19 vaccines.
Madbouly called for scaling up collaboration in the vaccine industry field – either through international mechanisms or bilateral cooperation – to help boost local manufacturing of vaccines and providing needed technology for this purpose.
On Thursday, the World Health Organization called for increasing the numbers of COVID-19 vaccine shipments delivered to Africa by over seven times to reach 150 million monthly to meet the target of vaccinating 70 percent of the continent people by September 2022.
The 70 percent target was agreed upon at the global COVID-19 summit hosted by the United States on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly last week to address the shortfall in vaccine doses in Africa and ensure equitable delivery of jabs there.
At the summit, several countries pledged to share more shipments of the vaccines, including the US that said it will share 500 million more COVID-19 vaccines to low-income countries over the next year, bringing its total pledges to more than 1.1 billion doses.
During Tuesday's event, the Egyptian prime minister added that the coronavirus pandemic has been representing a real challenge that tests each country's abilities to take rapid and effective measures to address the resulting negative impacts.
Such a challenge surfaces mainly in the developing nations when it comes to providing job opportunities and enhancing the social protection networks for millions of citizens, Madbouly said in the speech he delivered on behalf of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.
Egypt has swiftly taken several measures to reduce the pandemic's impacts via re-prioritising its investment plans to go in line with the features of the new global economic system, particularly in a number of resilient sectors and activities that are able to recover rapidly, the premier noted.
In addition, Madbouly said Egypt has supported such efforts via preparing a national strategy to combat climate change that is based on key areas helping the State fulfil its obligations under the Paris Agreement in line with backing the development efforts.
Tuesday's event was virtually organised by the UN as part of the Financing for Development in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond Initiative (FDI).
Short link: