19 Jun 2024

Botswana’s participation at today’s launch of the Africa Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA) in Paris, France presents the country with the opportunity to gain technical know-how in the field of vaccine manufacturing.

This was said by President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi on the eve of the AVMA launch at a briefing session with the Botswana Embassy staff in France.

President Masisi said Botswana would use the launch of the AVMA funding instrument to also seek collaborations on vaccine manufacturing, expressing hope that Botswana and France’s long-standing fruitful bilateral ties would pay off substantially in that regard.

“We need the technical know-how. We need the human capital and we need the legal know-how. So, we have come out to seek collaborations, clearly driven by our diplomatic relations and historical ties with France,” the President said.

He added that while in France, he would also hold bilateral talks with his French counterpart, Mr Emmanuel Macron during which they would discuss several issues, citing peace in the African continent and the Botswana-De Beers new diamond deal.He said the latter was critical since France was among the biggest consumers of Botswana diamonds.

The President will also engage in conservation talks with the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC), an international wildlife conservation non-governmental organisation (NGO) whose presence in Africa was only in South Africa and Namibia. 

In an interview, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr Lemogang Kwape said President Masisi was in France at the invitation of President Macron, who had been advocating for increased access to vaccines by all of the world’s population especially in the face of constant disease outbreaks.

Dr Kwape said President Masisi’s participation at the AVMA launch was in line with Botswana’s long-held aspirations to manufacture vaccines to combat in particular, preventable communicable diseases.

He said one of the key deliberations at the AVMA launch would centre on both identifying countries, which were ready to manufacture vaccines and enhancing their preparedness to help the world counter the disease burden through vaccine production.

“Botswana has for a long time maintained the view that it is in good stead to start manufacturing vaccines to fight disease, in particular those of a communicable nature. The President is therefore here to make a case why Botswana should be considered among those who will be facilitated to start vaccine manufacturing,” he said.

He added that Botswana’s positioning within the African continent made the country a suitable candidate for assistance due to its easy accessibility to the rest of the continent.

However, he said Botswana’s greatest undoing was often its classification as an upper middle-income country, which he said, usually made the country ineligible to benefit from many important initiatives.

“Botswana would nonetheless advocate for consideration of other key factors including how it was, like the rest of Africa not spared the impact of constant disease outbreaks,” the minister said.

Meanwhile, the AVMA was designed by Gavi, a vaccine alliance one of whose objectives was the reduction of child mortality and the halting of preventable deaths through improved access to immunisation.

Communication from the institution describes the June 20 launch as a course for ensuring global health security through making access to vaccines both universal and equitable.

The minister said another of President Masisi’s engagements while in France would be continued advocacy against the ban on the importation of trophies especially in the face of the unrelenting human-wildlife conflict that Botswana continued to grapple with.

He said the hunting quota that CITES had set for Botswana of 400 elephants per year was low to managing the ever-growing elephant population that presently stood at 130 000, making it the world’s largest concentration of the wildlife species.

Botswana’s ambassador to France, Mr Mustaq Moorad said President Macron was one of the G7 leaders who had constantly called for the capacitation of African countries to manufacture vaccines, saying only Rwanda, Egypt and South Africa had so far benefited. 

After concluding business in France, President Masisi will head to Germany where he is expected to among others address the German business community. ENDS