On March 26th Kenya’s President announced yet another lockdown, prompting immediate outcry from wider public, because unlike the first lockdown in March 2020 there were no economic support measures announced to try and cushion people from the impacts of a lockdown. Around the world, including in Africa when lockdowns have been implemented governments have deployed a myriad of support measures to cushion their citizens. The USA has deployed trillion-dollar stimulus packages with cash handouts to its citizens. The UK rolled out a multi-billion-pound furlough program that gave money directly to employers to keep staff on payroll even though they were not working. Around the continent we saw new and expanded cash transfer programs, tax breaks, stimulus spending, food aid and a myriad of programs all deployed to cushion Africans from potentially devastating lockdowns. However, the impact of these programs is not nearly enough to offset the damage done to livelihoods.
The data shows that in Africa, the measures implemented to control Covid has led to declining employment, livelihoods, food security, and human capital. And it is our poorest and most vulnerable, such as those self-employed in the informal sector. In one study of 6 African countries, up to 76% of people reported a fall in income as a direct result of the pandemic and the measures employed to control.
Unlike the USA we do not have two trillion dollars to throw at the problem. Furthermore, Africa is particularly susceptible to disasters, both natural and man made in the last five years we have seen an Ebola epidemic, Covid-19, locust invasions, devastating tropical storms, drought, floods, and landslides This means we must become innovative This means we must put in place mechanisms and policies that can respond to a crisis effectively while minimising their impact on the livelihoods, health, and security of Africans. It should not be about saving something impersonal like the economy but ensuring that people are, as far as is possible, able to continue with their lives.
Building crisis response systems
What should these crisis response systems that we need to build look like.
1. Starting from the bottom
For any crisis whether it is a pandemic, flood, drought, locust invasion etc. Its epicentre will be at the grassroots and that is where a response mechanism must start. The foundation of a crisis response system will be a community level mechanism that is capable of three things. First, engaging with its community effectively this is critical where the public will need to be educated, informed, or alerted during a crisis. Second, it must be capable of keeping up to date information that can be utilised for informed discussion making. We all now know about test and trace, but being able to identify, track and record is critical for tracking disease outbreaks, victims of natural disasters, pests that decimate crops etc. Third they should be from the communities they are serving, ideally even chosen by those communities. Trust is critical in community engagement, if that engagement is to have any impact having people from those communities who understand the nuances and dynamics of those communities and can speak to local context is critical.
2. Speaking to the public
In a crisis effective communication to the public is critical. You need to impart information that explains what the crisis is and what to expect, what measures people need to take to protect themselves or others, what the government is doing to help, and how people can access that help. African governments are particularly bad at this. The tend to speak down to their people, condescendingly giving orders rather than explaining the issue and asking for cooperation. Furthermore, communication tends to be sporadic, uncoordinated, and confusing.
Communications must be done in a way that engenders trust and encourages people to respond in a way that reinforces the public good (e.g., wearing a mask). To be prepared for the next crisis we must put in place communications systems that can meet these requirements. Assess how people get information during crises and identifying who they trust. Then putting in place systems that during a crisis can engage and inform people and institutions so that the information put to the public from the government via traditional (e.g., the official spokesperson) and non-traditional (community workers, religious institutions, schools, etc.) is one and the same and is given in as broad and often a manner as possible. These systems and processes can be activated during future crisis and emergencies to engage and inform in a timely and effective manner.
3. Supporting livelihoods
As the numbers show, the biggest impact of the pandemic on the continent has been on livelihoods, and many African governments have implemented measures aimed at cushioning their citizens. However, responding to the crisis after it has happened is often too little to late. What’s needed is the development of flexible livelihood support mechanisms and plans designed for the specific African context. This could consist of social safety nets which I have written about in detail here. But beyond that we must look at how our economies function and the critical activities that we must endeavour to keep running to preserve livelihoods. Which means looking at things like markets, transport and logistics, and informal trades, talking to the people who utilise and rely on those things and collaboratively developing plans that would enable them to stay open and function during crises. How do we keep markets open during a pandemic, do stall owners, sellers and buyers understand sanitation requirements and do they have access to water and sanitation supplies? In the event of floods, which roads are most likely to be washed out, what can we do now to mitigate that. When Malawi first introduced a lockdown in April 2020 they faced an immediate backlash and protests from informal traders precisely because they had not thought of these questions. This is not Europe; people cannot simply stay home when they and their families depend on their ability to leave the house and earn a living. This could have been avoided entirely if the government had rather than copy what everyone else was doing stopped to look at its own context, talk to its own people and produce a relevant solution. We can do this in advance, it wont cost much and resilience we build into our economies will save lives.
4. Working together
One of the things that I have been most proud of as an African during this crisis has been the way in which many African states and institutions have worked together. The AU and the Africa CDC have been at the forefront of this. Coordinating resources and expertise between states to improve testing and surveillance, developing a common procurement portal so that African states could pool resources and get the supplies they needed during those first critical months, and setting up the AU’s Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) to acquire and distribute vaccines on the continent. The cooperation and African multilateralism has been fantastic, but it could and should have been better. How can the AU, Africa CDC, EAC, ECOWAS, SADC etc. learn from the coronavirus pandemic to set up mechanisms that can respond to future crises. This pandemic has shown us that when push comes to shove America, the UK, Europe, China etc. will put themselves first. Hoard vaccines, restrict exports of critical supplies, corner the market on PPE, testing reagents and pharmaceuticals. As I have written about before the charity of other is not something we can rely on in global crises We can only overcome that by working together, agreeing in advance that when the next pandemic, natural disaster, global financial crisis, famine, flood, or even massive solar flare happens this is how we will cooperate. Most critically, we must share information, coordinate actions, where possible pool scarce resources and most importantly act with one voice on the international stage.
Conclusion
The Coronavirus pandemic has taught Africa several things.
First, we cannot rely on the rest of the world to help in a crisis especially when they too are affected. As Africa has struggled to acquire the resources to fight the pandemic and the vaccines to end it the developed world has hoarded them. As a result, Africa runs the risk of becoming the pandemic continent exposed to new strains ostracised by vaccine passports.
Second, we cannot simply borrow response mechanisms from others and implement them without thinking about our own unique contexts. How does a lockdown work in a slum? How does the informal sector “work from home”? The answer is they do not. And we must develop mechanisms that work for us and do not do more harm than they are trying to prevent.
At the start of May, Kenya’s president announced an easing of the lockdown as the 3rd wave of Covid-19 eased. Yet a couple of weeks later, the ministry of health is warning about a 4th wave of Covid-19 in July. Kenya’s cycle of outbreak spike, lockdown and economic pain is set to continue.
As the Kenyan example shows, the most important lesson is that there is no substitute for preparation. The pandemic caught the entire world by surprise and Africa must ensure that it does not happen again. Africa will face many crises in the near future and the only way to make sure those crises do not endanger the development of our continent is to put in place policies that give us the tools to mitigate their impacts and bounce back stronger.