This document discusses measuring progress toward goals in the Malabo Declaration in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. It proposes a health systems sensitive resilience index to supplement existing indicators. The approach develops a resilience capacities index considering health systems capacity and economic/country factors. Results show regional differences and rank country resilience. Incorporating this index with an existing Malabo indicator shifts some country rankings. The author concludes replicating high-resilience models and early identification of vulnerable countries could help direct resources to avert crises.

1. Mark A. Constas
Associate Professor of Applied Economics & Policy
Cornell University

2. Measuring Progress Toward the Malabo Declaration
Goals in the Midst of COVID-19
A Measurement Approach for a Health Systems Sensitive Resilience Index
Mark A. Constas
Cornell University
Max Wohlgemuth
Cornell University & the World Food Programme
John Ulimwengu
International Food Policy Research Institute
November 16, 2021
Presented to the 2021 ReSAKSS conference

3. Graphic Preface: Focus on Vaccine Rates*
G7 Countries Sub-Saharan Africa by Region
*Based on data from theWorld HealthOrganization’s Global HealthObservatory,July 2021
“The lowest rate of vaccine administration in a G7 country is nearly ten
time greater than the vaccine rate in the highest region of Africa”

4. Presentation Overview
• Introduction
• Framing the chapter & presentation
• Context, motivation, & purpose
• Basic empirical approach
• Conceptual model & data
• Results
• Region and by country
• Conclusions
• Next steps
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5. Framing of the Presentation & Chapter
• Context: Malabo Declaration Goals - Focus on Resilience
• Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development (CAADP)
Results Framework
• Limited use of health-focused indicators (e.g., food safety)
• Broad Motivation
• How might reporting on the progress made toward the
Malabo Declaration better reflect the effects of a global health
shock such as COVID-19?
• Purpose
• Explore how indicators related to reporting on country-level
progress toward the resilience component of the Malabo
Declaration goals may be supplemented by metrics that reflect
sensitivity to COVID-19
Resilience
Ability to anticipate,
absorb, adapt, or
transform in the face of
shocks
Theoretical
Perspective

6. Basic Empirical Approach
Conceptual Model & Data Sources
Health Systems
Resilience Capacity (HSC)
Economic & Country
Resilience Capacity (ECRC)
• Trade Dependency
• Supply chain efficiency
• Country fragility
• Vaccine rate
• Hospital bed density
• Medical professionals density
Stage 1
Develop a resilience capacities index in the
context of global heath shock (RCIGHS )
RCIGHS = f (HSC,
ECRC)
Stage 2
Combine RCIGHS with a Malabo
indicator to examine distribution of a
Malabo referenced index MRCIGHS
African Agriculture
Transformation Scorecard (AATS)

7. Brief Results
COVID-19 & AATS
• Part I: Using RCIGHS = f (HSC, ECRC)
• Regional results
• Based on composite score
• Country level results
• Based on individual distributions
• Part II: Using RCIGHS = f (HSC, ECRC) with Malabo-based (M)
indicator
• Country ranking results with and without Malabo/AATS
climate investment indicator
• Rank order switching between RCIGHS and MRCIGHS
Resilience
Ability to anticipate,
absorb, adapt, or
transform in the face of
shocks

8. Results Part I:
Health Systems Capacity and Economic & Country Resilience
Regional Focus
Country
Focus

9. Results Part II
Resilience Capacities Index to Global Health Shocks
Presented by Cumulative Ranking

10. Resilience Capacities Index & Climate Change Investment
Q4
Q3
Q2
Q1
With AATS
Climate Indicator
• Ghana
• Rwanda
• Namibia
• Uganda
• Burkina Faso
Without AATS
Climate Indicator
• South Africa
• Namibia
• Botswana
• Gabon
• Kenya
Malabo Referenced Resilience Capacities Index to Global Health Shocks
(MRCIGHS)Presented by Cumulative Ranking
MRCI
GHS
Tentative resilience
threshold

11. Conclusions
Implications of the Exploratory Study
• Replicating Effective Resilience Capacities
• Understanding the ability of countries with higher resilience capacities
to respond to COVID-19 may provide models that can be replicated in
other countries in the continent.
• Early Warning Potential
• The early identification of countries with the lowest capacity to
respond to global health shocks may help formulate policies and direct
investments to avert humanitarian disasters
• Future Work
• There is potential value in a broad, sustained program of research that
examines how the impacts of global health shocks may be
incorporated into reporting on agricultural productivity and reporting
the Malabo Declaration goals and more broadly on resilience
“The protracted nature of the global pandemic highlights the importance of including
indicators that are sensitive to global health shocks as part of the Malabo Declaration’s
monitoring and evaluation system.”