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BEIJING: Leaders of the 20 largest economies on Saturday (Nov 21) pledged to ensure a fair distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and tests around the world and to do whatever it takes to help the poorest countries. struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
“We will spare no effort to ensure its affordable and equitable access for all, in accordance with members’ commitments to incentivize innovation,” the leaders said in a preliminary G20 statement seen by Reuters. “We recognize the role of extensive immunization as a global public good.”
The twin crises of the pandemic and an uneven and uncertain global recovery dominated the first day of a two-day summit under the presidency of Saudi Arabia, which hands over the rotating G20 presidency to Italy next month.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which has pushed the global economy into a deep recession this year, and the efforts needed to shore up an economic rebound in 2021, were at the top of the agenda.
“We must work to create the conditions for affordable and equitable access to these tools for all peoples,” said the King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz, in his opening speech.
G20 leaders worry that the pandemic could further deepen the global divisions between rich and poor.
“We need to avoid at all costs a scenario of a two-speed world where only the wealthiest can protect themselves against the virus and restart normal lives,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at the summit.
To do that, the European Union urged G20 leaders to quickly invest more money in a global vaccine, testing and therapy project, called Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, and its COVAX facility to distribute vaccines.
“At the G20 Summit, I asked for 4.5 billion dollars to be invested in ACT Accelerator by the end of 2020, for the acquisition and delivery of COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines everywhere,” said the director of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on Twitter.
“We need to show global solidarity,” he said.
Germany was contributing more than 500 million euros ($ 592.65 million) to the effort, Chancellor Angela Merkel told the G20, urging other countries to do their part, according to a text of her remarks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to provide Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to other countries, saying Moscow was also preparing a second and third vaccine.
China, where the pandemic originated a year ago, has also offered to cooperate on vaccines. China has five local candidates for a vaccine that are in the final phase of trials.
“China is willing to strengthen cooperation with other countries in vaccine research and development, production and distribution,” President Xi Jinping said at the G20 Summit.
“We will offer help and support to other developing countries, and we will work hard to make vaccines a public good that citizens of all countries can use and pay for,” he said.
US President Donald Trump, who lost the US presidential election but refused to give in to former Vice President Joe Biden, briefly addressed G20 leaders before heading off to play golf. He discussed the need to work together to restore economic growth, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a summary published Saturday night.
He did not mention any commitment by the United States to support the global vaccine distribution effort. A European source said Trump’s comments focused on what he described as an unprecedented US recovery and the US push to develop its own vaccines.
LEE: Trump plays golf in the middle of the G20 summit
READ: PM Lee to attend G20 Virtual Summit; ‘collective efforts’ to get COVID-19 on the agenda
PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE
To prepare for future outbreaks, the EU proposes a treaty on pandemics. “An international treaty would help us to respond more quickly and in a more coordinated way,” European Council President Charles Michel told the G20.
While the world economy is recovering from the depths of the crisis, momentum is slowing in countries with resurgent infection rates and the pandemic is likely to leave deep scars, the International Monetary Fund said in a report to the summit.
Especially vulnerable are the poor and heavily indebted countries, which are “on the brink of financial ruin and escalating poverty, hunger and unspeakable suffering,” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Friday.
To address this, the G20 will back a plan to extend the freeze on debt service payments for the poorest countries until mid-2021 and support a common approach to tackling debt problems beyond that, according to the draft. of the statement.
World Bank President David Malpass warned the G20 that failing to provide more permanent debt relief to some countries now could lead to increased poverty and a repeat of the disorderly defaults of the 1980s.
The G20 debt relief initiative has helped 46 countries defer $ 5.7 billion in debt service payments, but that’s far below the 73 countries that qualified and promised savings of about $ 12 billion. of dollars. The participation of the private sector is considered essential to ensure a wider use of the initiative.
Africa’s debt relief will be a major theme of the Italian G20 presidency in 2021.
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