Skip to content 
To strengthen responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Board of Directors of the African Development Fund have approved grants totalling $9.52million. The grants will help combat the coronavirus in East Africa, Horn of Africa, and in the Comoros.
The grant is part of the $10billion Covid-19 Rapid Response Facility approved by the Board of Directors in April 2020. The grant complements the Bank’s direct support to regional member countries across the continent.
The beneficiaries are Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Funding will also go toward the procurement of essential medical supplies, including testing kits and to also train health workers.
The funds will be used to bolster health systems and disease surveillance, enhance infection prevention and control. It would also be used to improve regional coordination by the East African Community (EAC) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to contain cross-border transmissions.
Martha Phiri, Director for Human and Social Development said the overall objective of the operation is to reduce the incidence and mortality in the Eastern African region due to Covid-19 pandemic and other disease outbreaks.
How the grant for East Africa is to be distributed
The EAC Secretariat will receive $8.79 million in tranches of $8.16 million and $629,582 while $729, 581 will go to IGAD. The World Health Organization will be the implementing agency for the emergency response activities in the EAC and IGAD member states, and the Comoros. While the RECs will be directly responsible for executing the cross-border interventions.
Related: AFDB Chief Akinwumi Adesina to be Probed
Countries in Eastern and the Horn of Africa are enforcing stringent border measures to mitigate the cross-border transmissions. These border measures have led to disruptions in the movement of people, trade flows and access to essential goods. The project will, therefore, tackle these by improving testing and case detection capacity at border crossings and improving regional coordination.
The Project will also support EAC and IGAD to roll out regional COVID-19 digital tracking systems to facilitate cross-border surveillance. This will make the regional bodies better prepared to counter cross-border transmissions during future pandemics.
The grants align with the Bank’s High 5 priority commitments. Specifically to improving the quality of life for the people of Africa, and to advancing regional integration. The financing also strongly aligns with the Eastern Africa Regional Strategy Paper: enhanced cooperation in managing regional public goods.
As of 28 June, total confirmed cases in the 11 mainland countries of the region stood at 42,000. Meanwhile, the island nation of Comoros reported 265 cases out of a population of 800,000.
