With $44.6 billion, African countries are the biggest contributors to the battle against Covid-19 on the continent. The figures were reported by Bartholomew Armah (pictured), an economist and Chief Development Planning, Macroeconomics and Governance Division - UN Economic Commission for Africa.

The second-largest contributor is the International Monetary Fund with about $16 billion. This amount may have increased in the meantime, as the institution continues to approve disbursements to some countries in the region, as was recently the case for Cameroon. At just over $4.9 billion, the G20 and its initiative to suspend the debt of poor countries takes third place.

Financing from the IMF and G20 are loans that Africa will have to repay. This tends to show that Africa, for which everyone has expressed concern, has ultimately received very little support from the international community, particularly from developed countries where the response to covid-19 has reached trillions of dollars. The top 5 biggest contributors to the fight against covid-19 in Africa are completed by the African Development Bank and Afreximbank.

South Africa is the country in the region that has been the most supportive of its economy when government interventions are compared to GDP. It is followed by Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, and Nigeria, Africa's largest economy in terms of GDP.

The IMF's recent Economic Outlook Update indicates that growth in Africa is expected to decline by 3.08 percent in 2020. This represents a loss of $75 billion during the year.

According to some experts, the real challenges for Africa will be its capacity to borrow easily on world markets, and especially to achieve the establishment of its common market which would be the basis of an autonomous and strong currency policy in the region.

Idriss Linge