News & Analysis: Economic impact
To contain the economic damage of the pandemic and capitalize on the region’s underlying strengths, national and international leaders need to pursue urgent action.
“The unemployment rate in South Africa has been persistently high over time, hovering above 20% over the last decade. The official unemployment rate reached an all-time high of 30.8% during the third quarter of 2020.”
“Over the past decade, rigorous evaluations have shown Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program yielding positive results in addressing household poverty and food insecurity in the low-income districts it targets.”
“In many African countries, the economic response to the crisis so far appears to have been broadly less consistent than the health response. For mitigation measures to be stronger and more effective, and for sustained recovery to take place, governments, central banks, and regional institutions will need to make tough policy choices, promote coordinated and collaborative policy implementation, and embrace bold and innovative reforms.”
“We find that effective programs have three critical structural features of financial infrastructure: digital payment channels, the presence of a basic digital identification system with broad population coverage, and simple data on individuals and businesses that are tethered to the ID.”
“While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought devastating impacts on the economy and the health infrastructure, a key lesson the disease has taught is the need to prioritise local production and consumption, the Ashanti Region Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, has said.”
COVID-19 Africa Watch talks to Danny Leipziger, Professor of International Business at the George Washington University, about debt and debt relief amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“The COVID-19 temporary cash transfers are helping; but they operate alongside preexisting structural gaps in social protection. Whether the pandemic can be a game changer for addressing such gaps may depend on how the crisis affects six factors inhibiting coverage pan out in different contexts.”
“With most of Zimbabwe’s population employed in the informal sector, there are fears there could be widespread hunger as the government did not announce any plans to support citizens who will not be able to work during the lockdown.”
“The Paris Club of international creditors said on Monday it had accepted a request from Kenya for a debt-servicing suspension from January to the end of June.”
A hub for information, analysis, and the global response to COVID-19’s impact on Africa