The return of tourists to the level recorded before the covid-19 pandemic is not expected to happen "quite possibly" until 2024, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) predicted Thursday..

"The tourism-dependent economies in Africa have a positive outlook for developments, although the base is quite low, driven by the easing of travel restrictions and the economic recovery in source markets in Europe and Asia, as well as due to increased confidence to travel associated with the success of restraint measures and relatively high vaccination rates, as exists in Cape Verde, Comoros Islands, Mauritius, Morocco, Sao Tome and Principe and Tunisia," says the UN quoted by Lusa.

In the United Nations World Economic Outlook and Situation report for 2022, released this Thursday in Washington, the part that concerns Africa warns that, "However, tourist arrivals are not expected to return to 2019 levels until 2023 and, quite possibly, 2024."

The implication, they add, is that "economic recovery in these countries is likely to be difficult and vulnerable to further travel shocks worldwide, including from new variants."

Thus, they conclude, "tourism-dependent industries, such as wildlife conservation and environmental protection, and informal workers in the sector are likely to face another difficult year, with compounded long-term effects."

On vaccines, UNDESA laments that most African countries vaccinated less than 5% of the population, "missing the World Health Organization target of 10% coverage by September 2021 and 40% by the end of 2021," and points out that only five African countries were above 40% at the end of last year: Cape Verde, Mauritius, Morocco, Seychelles, and Tunisia.

"Vaccine distribution has been hampered by price, resistance, logistics, global constraints on production, and hoarding abroad," UNDESA says, concluding that "global solidarity has been largely inadequate, with commitments and deliveries to Covax falling short of needs."

However, the UN report comes on the day that the director of the African Union Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said that African countries have so far received 663 million doses, of which they have administered 340 million, which is 60.4% of the total.

In total, 10.1% of the continent's population is fully immunized against covid-19, added John Nkengasong, who highlighted the countries that have made the most progress in terms of complete vaccination coverage: Egypt (22.3%) Morocco (62.3%), South Africa (27.3%), Algeria (2.4%) and Mozambique (23.8%).