Diamonds are forever, but #COVAX & @gavi, poster children of (Northern) narcissistic charity & (Southern) dependency, should exit the stage.@sarajerving @DevTodayJournal @TheLancet @paimadhu @CKyobutungi @seyeabimbola @WALETOM @BillGates @GaviSeth @WHO @raj_devex. Thread:
Institutional malpractice:“If ever there’s an enquiry into how this happened, we can find Covax culpable. We were misled.” That was @_AfricanUnion Envoy Strive Masiyiwa on #Covax. milkeninstitute.org/video/covid-va… @sarajerving
“GAVI has done a great job, but it has also hampered development in recipient countries,” Professor Oyewale Tomori, an eminent Nigerian virologist and former @gavi board member told VICE World News. “The last question I asked at a GAVI meeting was ‘Is GAVI forever?’"
Culpable neo-dependency?: "And my reason for asking was that so many African governments - even when their economies are developed enough - revert to GAVI-assistance instead of taking care of their own people.”vice.com/en/article/epn…
On platitudinal defenses of the status quo by those who should know better? The #GlobalHealth rendition of the "Stockholm Syndrome." Life often imitates the arts, & those of a certain vintage may recall an artiste singing "Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains."
It is a solvable problem. How so?
a) End the hypercentralized approach to global health financing. It is a central platform for capture by entrenched special interests and #HICs of the Global North.
a) End the hypercentralized approach to global health financing. It is a central platform for capture by entrenched special interests and #HICs of the Global North.
b) Regional procurement platforms by and for #Africa as the default mechanisms for buying #vaccines for the continent (unless one takes the position that the continent is incapable of doing that -- the de facto premise of @gavi's business model).
c) Increasingly self-financed assertiveness by African countries. Perpetual reliance on the fickle kindness of strangers is not a viable strategy. development-today.com/archive/dt-202…
d) Build on Africa-led @AfricaCDC, AfCFTA, & African Medicines Agency. For resilient supply chains (HT @Prof_Yadav_SCM): regional #manufacturing , geographical #diversification in sourcing, stockpile of critical counter measures, with agile and responsive distribution #systems.
e) A sunset for @gavi, with pin-sharp transition milestones and an explicit shutdown date. Yes, that includes routine childhood #vaccines. It is time to sing a requiem for neo-dependency.
More on the big picture and specifics in "Global Health In Practice: Investing Amidst Pandemics, Denial of Evidence, and Neo-dependency." amazon.com/Global-Health-…
"To those who would seek to justify the status quo, and to those who would rather continue endless rounds of cosmetic reforms, meetings that lead nowhere, and hollow rituals of ineffectual declarations,...
...the question is: cui bono?" In "Global Health In Practice." @sarajerving @WHO @gavi #COVAX @BillGates @GaviSeth @WALETOM @DrTedros @FilesGeneva @CKyobutungi @seyeabimbola @paimadhu @raj_devex @DrSophieHarman @sridhartweet @thecontinent_ @AnnaGawel3 @TheEconomist @Nature
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