Nairobi, 25 June, 2020 / 10:19 pm (ACI Africa).
Religious men and women with presence in Africa and Europe have, in a collective statement, expressed the need for a recovery plan that goes beyond food security, debt cancellation, and dialogue around capital investments.
“We call for a global post COVID-19 just recovery that will be inclusive but not limited to the sustainable food system, cancellation of Africa’s debt burden and just energy transitions in the ongoing trade and investment negotiations between the EU and the Organization of Africa, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS),” said members of the Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN).
“At this time of Covid-19 pandemic, we have not just widely and vividly experienced our interconnectedness and vulnerability but the pandemic has further exposed the fault-lines of our economic system, unsettled every dimension of life and left the future most unpredictable for Africa,” the members say in their collective communique signed by AEFJN President, André Classens, a member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC).
Drawn from 50 Religious Congregations and Societies of Apostolic Life present in Africa and Europe, AEFJN members say that though “the pandemic is yet to reach its peak in Africa, the disproportionate imminent consequences and predictions keep the world on the edge.”
“The COVID-19, among its side effects, has triggered a dramatic recessive push on the African economy,” the Religious Missionaries say and add, “The collapse of tourism and exports as a result of the closure of borders, the volatility on the international financial markets of the price of commodities, oil first and foremost, have brought the African national economies to their knees.”
