Amujae Initiative Coaches Former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala take part in the London School of Economics COVID-19 online event

Culled from www.ejsenter.org

Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former Nigerian Finance Minister and EJS Center board member Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took part in an online event hosted by the London School of Economics (LSE) to discuss Africa’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.

They were joined by LSE Director Minouche Shafik, International Growth Centre (IGC) Director and Oxford University Professor Paul Collier, and Executive Director of the IGC Dr. Jonathan Leape.

Entitled Global Leadership to Support Africa’s Response to COVID-19, the discussion was part of the #LSECOVID19 online events series, aimed at understanding the impact of the pandemic around the world. This session asked how African countries can best respond to the virus and the collapse of global trade.

Madam Sirleaf and Dr. Okonjo-Iweala both spoke about the lessons that had been learned from the Ebola crisis, and shed light on the challenges and opportunities at play when managing the fallout from a pandemic.

Madam Sirleaf said that in order to contain the spread of COVID-19 and deal with the eventualities of the crisis, good leadership and reliable data are key:

“We need to be engaged and show exemplary leadership at all levels – political leadership, technical leadership, to be able to guide the action that will be taken to fight the virus.”

“We also need reliable and, if possible, informed data and information – if we don’t have that, then we don’t know how to develop the responses and whatever action that can be taken to ensure we get the desired result and effect.”

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, who was recently appointed Special Envoy for the African Union on COVID-19, spoke about how previous crises prepared health systems in West Africa for the current pandemic:

“In Nigeria, we had contact tracing when Ebola happened, we used the system that we had built up for polio to help with Ebola tracing, and that limited the number of contacts as well as the number of deaths – considerably.”

She also called for African governments to look more widely at the issue of social housing to protect against future pandemics:

“We have to deal with the issue of overcrowding in some of our cities and introducing affordable housing.”

“We can house these people who are crowded together, and we can do it in a climate-friendly and green way. As we recover from this crisis, we have to build back better.”

Watch the full discussion here, and see here for a blog from the LSE on surviving COVID-19, referencing Madam Sirleaf’s statements on leadership.

Both Madam Sirleaf and Dr. Okonjo-Iweala serve as coaches in the Amujae Initiative, a program of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development.