By Professor Robert DUSSEY? Minister for Foreign Affairs, African Integration and the Togolese Nationals Abroad, Togo ACP Group Chief Negotiator for the post-Cotonou Agreements
The coronavirus pandemic, which has shut down the world for several weeks, challenges us, as humans, and brings us up against certain existential questions: where are we going so fast? Is humanity going to its loss or is it following its own destination? These questions, which must serve as an alarm for the human consciousness, convince us of one thing: the human experience of freedom in History, which is the theater of contrasts, can lead to the best or the worst of situations for humanity. When the worst happens, it is an ordeal, but it also constitutes an invitation for humanity to a reorientation of its existential behaviour. Generations pass, but humanity remains, and it has a duty of lucidity towards itself as the coronavirus has once again reminded us.
This pandemic has broken down national and continental borders, and the ACP tricontinental space is not immune to its sphere of extension. If the African, Caribbean and Pacific States are less affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, both in terms of contamination and mortality rate, which for the moment contradicts all the apocalyptic predictions, the impacts of the pandemic on the three regions of the Organisation of the African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) are very real and must lead the Group to develop an internal pandemic response strategy and put the human and social matters at the base of the relations with its partners