Caritas Internationalis Wants COVID-19 Vaccine Production in Poor Countries Fostered

The Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations, making recommendations on them.

The Council has 47 Member States elected for a three-year term by the UN General Assembly members on the basis of their promotion and protection of human rights as well as their voluntary commitments to the same.  The current membership has 13 African countries.

In his February 25 letter to the participants of the ongoing February 22-March 23 Council meeting, the Secretary General of CI urges the international community “to put the respect for human rights and human dignity at the heart of the recovery from the pandemic by ensuring easy and equal access to the vaccines.”

In view of “careful awareness building of the local communities on preventive care” Aloysius John who has been serving in his current position since May 2019 calls on the Council to ensure the allocation of “financial and technical support to local civil society organizations.”

With the global economy struggling to recover from the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, the Secretary General of the Italy-headquartered confederation appeals to the international leaders to “undertake the debt remission of the poorest countries and allocate funds to strengthen their national health systems.”

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The Secretary General of the 124-year-old entity is the latest leader to join the global call for debt relief for poor countries amid COVID-19 challenges.

In July 2020, the Holy See through its Permanent Observer to the United Nations in Geneva, Archbishop Ivan Jurkovič, urged countries to help relieve the “crippling external debt burdens” of developing countries struggling in the coronavirus pandemic.

“There is no doubt that the current COVID-19 crisis will more severely affect the lives and livelihoods of those in the developing world,” Archbishop Jurkovič told the UN trade and development board last July.

Two months later, the leadership of All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), an ecumenical fellowship with a presence in more than 40 African nations, urged its members to put their governments to task in view of addressing the growing debt crisis in their respective countries, which they said has plunged African nations in a new form of slavery and taken away their sovereignty.

On their part, Catholic Church leaders in Africa joined more than 140 other Christian groups’ representatives from across the world who called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to cancel developing nations’ debts amid COVID-19 challenges.

Meanwhile, last November, the leadership of the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) encouraged the push for debt relief after Zambia’s external creditors denied the appeal by the Edgar Lungu-government for the suspension of the repayments of the Eurobonds for six months.

The recent call for the same has come from the leadership of the International Cooperation for Development Solidarity (CIDSE), an international alliance of Catholic development agencies in Europe and North America.

In the statement shared with ACI Africa February 23, CIDSE leadership appealed “for debt cancellation and financial support to poorest countries” that have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Founded on 9 November 1897 by German Fr. Lorenz Werthmann, Caritas Internationalis shares the mission of the Catholic Church to serve the poor and to promote charity and justice throughout the world.