COVID-19 pandemic affecting socioeconomic condition of “almost all” African countries

“It is important to assess the socio-economic impact of COVID-19, although the pandemic is at a less advanced stage in Africa, due to its lesser quantity of international migrants’ arrivals relatively to Asia, Europe, and North America and strong precaution measures in some African countries,” the report read.

The newly published report, which noted that African economies remain informal and very extroverted and vulnerable to external shocks, envisaged on understanding the possible socio-economic repercussions in order to propose policy recommendations to respond to the crisis mainly due to the difficulty of quantifying the real impact as a result of the uncertainty as well as the rapidly evolving nature of the pandemic and scarcity of the data.

According to the report, tourism, air transport, and the oil sectors are “visibly impacted.”

It, however, stressed that the invisible impacts of Covid-19 are expected in 2020 regardless of the duration of the pandemic.

“The socio-economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis is real. It is therefore essential to inform the populations on the impact and advice policymakers in order to better prepare and lessen the adverse impact of the pandemic,” the report stressed.

“With the negative impact on key sectors of the economy such as tourism, travel, exports; with falling commodity prices, declining governments’ resources to finance public investment, it would be quasi impossible to achieve this optimistic forecast of growth rates in 2020,” the AU stressed.

The report, which noted the higher impact of COVID-19 on Africa’s tourism industry, also stressed that for 15 African countries, the tourism sector represents more than 10 percent of the GDP and for 20 of the 55 African states, the share of tourism in the national wealth is more than 8 percent.

Figures from the AU also show that the tourism sector contributes much more to GDP in countries like Seychelles, Cape Verde and Mauritius (above 25 percent of GDP) while it also employs more than a million people in each of Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania. Tourism employment comprises more than 20 percent of total employment in Seychelles, Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, and Mauritius.

The newly published report came as the death toll from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the African continent has reached 414 as confirmed positive cases reached 9,178, the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention revealed on Monday.

Source: Xinhua