Page - 553 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

553COVID-19 and Africa: Does “One Size Fit All” in Public Health Intervention? result has been to delay focus on a global approach to COVID-19. The absence of concerted international solidarity to contain COVID-19 in Africa will render the entire world vulnerable. However, several les- sons and opportunities for Africa can be sketched from the current realities and experiences. First, reliance on external intervention will not optimally tap the continent’s potential for resilience. African nations collectively need to leverage their variegated capacities, and experiences with infec- tious disease control, and to regionally scale the national response successes in Senegal and elsewhere referenced above. Second, a copy-and-paste adoption of emergency responses crafted outside the continent will not effectively serve African reali- ties. Adaptive approaches to emergency response measures, includ- ing extra vigilance on matters of civil liberties and rule of law, are important. Third, COVID-19 demonstrates the core need for credible data as a governance tool in order to identify and support vulnerable demographics. Fourth, pending improved governance over the use of data, Africa’s endowment in community mobilization through religious and cultural networks, including increasingly important diaspora outreach, have demonstrable capacity to fill the gaps in government’s failure to reach the most vulnerable.48 These actors need to be more creatively integrated into African nations’ fledgling social safety nets and protocols.49 Fifth, further growth in use of mobile money and mobile pay- ment systems needs to be fostered, since electronic transactions do not carry the virus-spreading risks posed by physical handling of cash.50 Sixth, despite the current weakening of global institutional pub- lic health interventionist bodies and the tenuousness of international comity, Africa needs to strengthen its own regional health bodies as important pathways to scaling and dispersal of R&D efforts. 48. The African union recognizes the diaspora as Africa’s 6th regional category, an evidence of the role and potential of that demographic in development. See Carine K Nantulya & Dewa Mavhinga, “Africa’s Covid-19 Response Should Focus on People’s Needs, Rights” (16 April 2020), online: Human  Rights  Watch <https://bit.ly/2xHYU6S>. 49. See Gift Dafuleya “Explainer, Why COVID-19 Provides a Lesson for Africa to Fund Social Assistance”, The Conversation (3 May 2020), online: <https://bit. ly/2yrqLc6>. 50. See Gnassingbe, supra note 40.