African countries ease coronavirus lockdowns to avoid hurting poor
- Tough restrictions imposed to curb spread of Covid-19 may not work for poor nations, experts warn
- Africa’s workers lack financial freedom to work from home or even forgo jobs and wages amid pandemic
The move comes amid cautions that the trade and movement restrictions have been harming Africa’s poor who have to go out each day to eke out a living. In Africa, experts say, workers are less able than their peers elsewhere in the world to avoid infection by working from home or even forgoing jobs and wages.
Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt and Algeria are implementing a phased easing of restrictions to allow citizens to do business to boost economies that are reeling from the coronavirus’ impact.
In Nairobi, the government has opened a small window in the economy to allow cafes and restaurants to reopen on condition they test their food handlers for coronavirus and enforce social distancing and hygiene measures. The restaurants will operate between 5am and 4pm, while a dusk-to-dawn curfew remains in effect.
“We will allow restaurants that show the highest levels of health regulation compliance, and the ability to arrange for employee testing, to undertake minimal operations while maintaining measures that mitigate against the spread of the coronavirus,” Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta said.
The government was mapping out those sectors and activities – based on infection risk – that would underpin the reopening of the economy progressively, he said.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with more than 200 million people, is also relaxing its lockdown on major cities, including Abuja, Lagos and Ogun, from next week.
President Muhammadu Buhari said on Monday that the lockdowns “have come at a very heavy economic cost” and many “of our citizens have lost their means of livelihood”.
“No country can afford the full impact of a sustained lockdown while awaiting the development of vaccines.”
From next week, businesses will reopen while adhering to hygiene and social distancing measures, Buhari said.
The government has also imposed a nationwide curfew from 8pm to 6am, and non-essential interstate passenger travel is banned until further notice.
Virag Forizs, Africa economist at Capital Economics in London, said that the “risk of lockdowns imposed to prevent the spread of Covid-19 failing to contain the outbreak is bigger in Africa than in other parts of the world”.
“Successful lockdown policies have been imposed in wealthy, urban societies in Europe and East Asia, but they may be less effective in poorer societies,” she said.
While the suppression of social and economic activity might stall the virus, it also caused a huge fall in incomes, she said.
Exact figures on household savings in Africa are not readily available but according to a recent report by Capital Economics, just 37 per cent of people in Kenya said they were financially positioned to “cope with shocks”.
Ghana is also easing lockdown rules on its major cities as President Nana Akufo-Addo raised concern that the measures were hurting the economy. Social events and public gatherings are still banned and schools will remain closed.
Similarly, South Africa, which is under a nationwide lockdown, said it would allow some businesses to reopen from Friday, as the economy starts to heal from the devastating effects of the epidemic.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday that some business activities would resume, subject to precautions to limit community transmission and outbreaks.
However, the nation’s borders would remain closed, except for the repatriation of South African nationals and foreign citizens, and all travel between provinces, except for transporting goods, would remain prohibited.
South Africa, which has better health care facilities than many others on the continent, has reported 5,350 coronavirus infections and 103 deaths. Across the continent, the number of cases has more than doubled to 37,108 over the past two weeks, with the death toll at 1,580.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, which has so far confirmed 491 cases and 30 deaths, also has relaxed some restrictions in parts of its capital, Kinshasa.
In North Africa, Egypt, the country with the second most cases on the continent – 5,268 and 380 deaths – joined Algeria to relax some antivirus measures to allow movement during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Algeria has reported 444 deaths from 3,848 cases.
The World Bank said in a recent report on Africa that self-quarantining and social distancing were especially challenging for a continent on which 85 per cent of the population survive on less than US$5.50 per day and 70 per cent of city dwellers live in crowded slums.
“A lockdown could entail severe hardships in countries where most of the population work as farmers or self-employed entrepreneurs in the informal sector and need to remain active to support their families,” it said.
