It’s a primed start for Africa’s drive towards COVID-19 vaccine production and equitable access with the project inception workshop held from 20-22 July 2022 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) and partners, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) under the three (3) – year, collaborative ECOVA project.

The USD 1 million project dubbed, “Equitable access to COVID-19 Vaccines in Africa, (ECOVA)”, which is being financed by the International Development and Research Centre (IDRC), was initiated by the Executive Director of AfHEA, Professor John Ele-Ojo Ataguba, with the overall strategic objective of generating evidence critical to informing Africa’s agenda for COVID-19 vaccine production, equitable distribution, delivery, uptake and beyond.

Professor Ataguba, who is also the inaugural Canada Research Chair in Health Economics at the University of Manitoba, said the ECOVA project, which is the first of its kind ever delivered by AfHEA in partnership with Africa CDC and UNECA, will be very essential in addressing a critical gap in understanding how current vaccine production and distribution inequities and inequalities affecting Africa have been exacerbated by current global power dynamics. “Due to this vital contribution that the ECOVA project will make, other partners such as Global Affairs Canada have shown keen interest. This imposes a need to comprehensively carry out ECOVA project activities and to achieve its objectives fully inclusive of a gender dimension.”, he noted during his speech.