African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and Standard Chartered have announced an agreement for the bank to provide $200million of not-for-profit funding towards a structured framework to help finance the acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines for African nations.
The collaboration between Standard Chartered and Afreximbank will help ensure that all 55 countries of the African Union have access to COVID-19 vaccines. This facility will play a part in ensuring that the continent achieved its COVID-19 strategy, which targets vaccinating a minimum of 60 per cent of its population.
This facility is part of the Advance Procurement Commitment (APC) framework structured by Afreximbank in collaboration with the African Vaccines Acquisition Task Team (AVATT), within which Afreximbank provided a guarantee of $2billion to vaccine manufacturers to secure access to COVID-19 vaccines for African countries. Over the last year, Afreximbank has also launched a number of facilities to support AU member countries mitigate their economic challenges. These include the Pandemic Trade Impact Mitigation facility (PATIMFA), under which the bank has disbursed over $6.5 billion to mitigate and manage the financial, economic and health impacts of the pandemic. In addition, Afreximbank put in place a $1.5bn Collaborative Covid-19 Pandemic Response Facility (COPREFA), working with partners to support African economies during the pandemic.