The African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) has established a No-Fault Compensation Scheme for COVID-19 vaccines in participating countries in Africa and the Caribbean.

AVAT acts as a centralised purchasing agent on behalf of the African Union Member States, to secure the necessary vaccines and blended financing resources for achieving Africa’s COVID-19 vaccination strategy. AVAT has already secured several hundred million doses of COVID-19 vaccine for which deployment began in Q3 2021.

The AVAT No-Fault Compensation Scheme (AVAT NFCS) was officially launched in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, on 22 March 2022.

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The AVAT NFCS provides eligible individuals with prompt, fair and transparent compensation for unlikely adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines procured or distributed under the AVAT initiative.

AVAT was established by the COVID-19 African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, which was set up in November 2020 by President Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Republic of South Africa, in his capacity as Chairperson of the African Union (AU), as a support component to the COVID-19 Immunisation Strategy that was endorsed by the AU Bureau of Heads of State and Government in August 2020.

AVAT’s institutional partners are the African Union, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

Hope Moses-Ashike is an Associate Editor, Banking and Finance, with more than a decade of experience reporting on Nigeria’s financial system and broader economy. She closely tracks market movements, monetary policy decisions, company disclosures, regulatory actions, economic indicators, and global developments, and interprets what they mean for businesses, investors, policymakers, and households. Her reporting helps readers understand complex issues such as inflation trends, foreign exchange market dynamics, interest rate decisions, bank performance, and investment risks. She also covers major international events and periodically travels to Washington, D.C., to report on the World Bank/IMF Spring and Annual Meetings. Her dedication to financial journalism has earned her multiple recognitions and invitations to high-level professional development programmes. She is an alumna of the International Visitors Leadership Programme (IVLP) in the United States and holds an Advanced Financial Journalism Certificate from the Press Association Training in London, UK. Her other notable achievements include completing the Lagos Business School CMC Programme, the Bloomberg Media Africa Initiative Programme, and a Master Class in Journalism at Rhodes University in South Africa.

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