South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has said Africa's resilience attained during the brutal colonial era enabled it to wade through the Covid-19 pandemic almost unscathed.
Speaking during Kenya-South Africa High-Level Business Forum at KICC, Nairobi, Ramaphosa said Africa is the only continent that was able to distinguish itself in the manner it addressed the pandemic.
"We are the only continent that was able to unite and act in an integrated manner," he said.
"No other continent that I know of and to a large extent Europe, was able to develop as good a strategy as we did and we lived up to the hidden resilient strength that we have as Africans."
The President said our unity of strength was exemplified during the peak of the horrific pandemic when other regions of the world were running around looking for expensive PPEs and other preventive equipment.
He said Africa on its part established an Africa Medicines Supply Platform that enabled countries to source for PPEs at reduced prices.
"That too was phenomenal and we did it because we became integrated and united. Whilst that was going ahead, the era of vaccines came to the fore," Ramaphosa said.
"Once again we united and put together a vaccine acquisition entity and we were able to procure and amass vaccines in the most effective manner."
He said the above scenario demonstrates that if African countries choose to adopt the spirit of unity, the continent can achieve much more than imagined.
Ramaphosa said the current climate change crisis presents a perfect chance for the continent to unite and work together towards mitigating the effects of the adverse weather patterns.
"And out of it all we should be able to see new opportunities, as President Ruto said on new industries and sectors to excel in the most outstanding manner," he said.
He said in the same spirit of unity, African leaders made it clear at the COP27 Summit in Egypt that Africa can no longer continue to bear the brunt of climate change.
Ramaphosa urged more developed countries to honour their commitments to invest $100 billion per year to mitigate the effects of global warming.
"They have not met those commitments. We want them to address the loss and the damage that our countries are suffering from," he said.
"It is about time that the money is brought to Africa to enable us to address the damage that they have caused to our climate."
Ramaphosa is in Kenya on a two-day State visit.
