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Customise lockdowns in Africa - WB

Saturday April 18 2020
unemp

Covid-19 will cause a three per cent contraction in the global economy in 2020 leading to high unemployment rates around the world. FILE PHOTO | NMG

By CHRISTOPHER KIDANKA

The World Bank has warned against sub-Saharan economies implementing similar lockdowns as those being employed in developed economies.

The Bank’s Africa Pulse report titled Assessing the Economic Impact of COVID-19 and Policy Response to Sub Saharan Africa, the Bretton-Woods institution says economic policies implemented in sub-Saharan Africa should be different from those adopted in developed Western countries and middle-income countries.

The report released on April 9, analysed some of responses made by some sub-Saharan African countries in containing the spread of the coronavirus Covid-19.

The World Bank report says in combating Covid-19 pandemic, most African countries had replicated similar approaches reacting quickly and decisively in line with international experience.

“As the situation evolves, there are more questions about suitability and likely effectiveness of some of these policies such as strict confinement,” the report reads in part.

Informal work

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The report advises that economic policies implemented in sub-Saharan Africa be different from those adopted in advanced and middle-income countries owing to the informal nature of most of sub-Saharan African economies.

The Africa Pulse report says a number of entrepreneurs who are self-employed and those who have employed others and running economic units constitute 92.4 per cent of the region’s economic units, a lot whose workers lack benefits such as health insurance, unemployment insurance, and paid leave.

“A prolonged lockdown will put at risk the subsistence of their households,” the report says.
In East Africa, only Tanzania and Burundi are yet to have strict stay-at-home directives while Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda have curfews and lockdowns in place to check the spread of the virus.

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