The eagerness and desire of seeing the full picture of challenges and opportunities in the pandemic situation the world is living today is the reason why the second online meeting was held for and with the Together for a New Africa participants on 29th April, 2020. The current Ambassador of Italy in Algeria, Pasquale Ferrara was the guest speaker.
It is now more than 2 months since the covid_19 pandemic found its way to Africa. Countries reacted differently in handling their national safety. In addition to the Pandemic, many Africans are dealing with many other social, political, security, and health issues. In Congo, for instance, the pandemic broke only a few weeks after the country was declared free from Ebola; one of the deadly viruses in the world. Not to mention the healthcare issues in handling covid_19 like materials and enough & efficient health workers, many countries still have problems getting clean water especially in rural areas and many people in the towns live on hand to mouth; work to survive on daily basis. This makes the quarantine or lockdown measures tough for many despite such measures being there for them to be safe from the virus. The question many have and struggle with is; if they stay at home safe from the virus, who will save them from hunger?
Opportunities might seem less and invisible to describe today but, in his intervention, Ambassador Pasquale Ferrara, expressed his hope and vision of new opportunities emerging due to this global crisis. He emphasized on the hope of global governance where cosmopolitism is the new realism; the new kind of maturity where the international cooperation is not in term of cooperating but in terms of sharing. The situation in which people are living worldwide is teaching us the fact that we can learn from one another and that we all share the same destiny as human beings. The blame game that has been experienced from different political leaders manifested the lack of international cooperation. Countries are no longer safer on their own – they need to interconnect to find solutions and once found share them; make them a common good for everyone’s benefit. The pandemic shows us the fragilities of our systems and it is one of the many attacks that could hit the world. It could have been an environmental crisis and once again we would need to face it all together.
“The investments in military forces to protect our nations against the visible enemies did not help much this time. One never thought that a micro virus would do much damage socially and economically. It could be taken as a mistake or a lesson to learn. There are other areas to look at, to maximize the security of humans other than army because as evidenced, the power of countries turned powerless in the wake of Covid-19. We could say that this came to remove the line between high politics (matters related to security and threats) and low politics (climate change, education, human development considered always as secondary issue). Politics are neither low nor high when dealing with the safety of citizens or humankind” – all these were clear thoughts shared by Prof. Pasquale Ferrara that calls for all of us as humanity to think deeply and influence change in our systems and governance.
This second meeting gathered more than 50 participants of Together for a New Africa to whom Ferrara revealed his African soul by telling them how he feels about Africa and Africans after 4 years in the embassy of Italy in Algeria. In the question and suggestions raised by the participants, the hunger of knowing the place of Africa at the international level, and its contribution to finding the solution was strongly felt.