Cote d’Ivoire’s president Alassane Ouattara who is the current chairman of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) on Monday called on his peers to devise a common strategy with which to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic.
He was speaking during an extraordinary UEMOA summit held by videoconference whose purpose was to analyse the health crisis related to the coronavirus pandemic in the bloc.
“President Alassane Ouattara invited the states of the union to share their experiences in the management of Covid-19 and to seek together the means to deal with this pandemic. He urged them to define a common strategy to fight the pandemic and to give guidance to regional institutions and government teams for its implementation,” the Ivorian presidency said in a statement.
The Ivorian leader, the statement said, invited UEMOA countries to “act quickly” and take all measures at the health, economic and social levels to mitigate the effects of this crisis on their economies and reduce the suffering of their populations.
Last Thursday, regional leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met by videoconference to analyse the economic and financial impact of Covid-19 in the sub-region.
At the end of the summit, they made several decisions including advocating for the cancellation of Africa’s mounting debts.
LB/ls/lb/as/APA