Sometime soon, thanks to a deal struck under the COVAX Facility, African nations may start receiving larger shares of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines. As they do, their economies can move further toward post-coronavirus growth and recovery.
This good news comes as the continent hits another economic milestone: On Jan. 1, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)—the world’s largest free trade area—officially went into force. The moment was decades in the making; since the Lagos Plan of Action of 1980, creating an “African Common Market” has been a major regional goal.
