Preamble
The shift in the operational dynamics of economic sectors globally, since the beginning of the pandemic, has contributed to the popularization of the phrase ‘new normal’ specifically used to depict new guidelines for minimizing physical contacts through physical distancing, crowd control and sanitary habits that, in some cases, resulted in the outright closure of designated public spaces. Within the global economic framework, the macroeconomic layer of business was adversely affected in developing economies, especially in terms of the reduction in international trade (export) activities resulting from border closures to control the spread of infections. Economic experts at a roundtable organized by the International Telecommunication Union noted that economic recession during the pandemic has adversely affected major players within the digital economic space. The impacts range from decline in media advertising to lack of capital investments for building infrastructures for internet platforms, especially in developing countries, even though the ICT sector enjoyed major boost as beneficiaries during the pandemic. The third meeting of the Africanist Scholars’ Forum organized by the West African Transitional Justice Centre (WATJCentre) on September 2, 2021 thus focused on exploring the current shifts in the operational dynamics of the global economic landscape, while exploring the power asymmetry in the politics of vaccination as efforts are being harnessed to appropriately situate the new normal.
Observations
The forum acknowledged that there have been paradigmatic operational shifts within micro- and macro-economic contexts globally. The negative impacts of these shifts include the depletion and disappearance of urban and rural livelihoods as fallouts of lockdown measures where businesses were closed (either temporarily or permanently) and workers were laid off due to insufficient funds. The International Labour Organization, in its January 2021 report on Covid-19 and the World of Work, noted that about 93 percent of the global workforce are in countries that had lockdown measures in place, with working hours losses in 2020 estimated to be four times higher than during the 2009 global financial crises. For instance, between 2.2 and 2.8 million people reportedly lost their jobs within a quarter during the first half of 2020 in South Africa.
Nonetheless, while sectors such as hospitality, travel, construction, arts and culture, and food services have been hit with massive job losses, the technically savvy have enjoyed more employment opportunities in the ICT, finance (especially financial technology) and insurance sectors. As a consequence, this contrast was projected to increase in-country inequalities in the immediate future. In June 2021, the World Bank forecasted uneven post-pandemic recovery processes, with major economies (specifically the United States and China) set to enjoy faster recovery while developing countries would struggle with economic growth. The reason for the latter is largely due to the inequality of access to vaccines amidst the growing spread of variants of a resilient mutating virus.
Since the pandemic started in 2020, virtually all countries have had their educational systems disrupted, with either full or partial closure of schools affecting about 1.2billion students. The teaching profession has also been very vulnerable to job losses and infections, and Africa has been specifically affected, especially in countries where teachers are in short supply. According to the UN projection, there is need for about 15 million more teachers to achieve educational goals by the year 2030. One of the coping mechanisms on the learning losses during the pandemic has been the deployment of digital tools for remote learning, while the recovery period is characterized by hybrid learning as in-person classes resumed with the requirement of maintaining health and safety standards. Rapid digital transformation in the educational sector has thus become one of the major fallouts of the pandemic with the deployment of radio and tv broadcasts; virtual tools such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet and other online learning platforms; and digital modules through other mobile educational applications for asynchronous learning.
The forum noted that while the vaccination gap between the major economies and developing nations are partly due to lack of access, populations within the low-income and high-risk countries have more vulnerabilities in terms of misinformation and disinformation, which lead to apathy for the vaccination programs. Various myths about DNA reconfiguration, altering of immunity and implantation of microchips have been invoked alongside post-vaccination reactions and the recent need for booster shots (after about six months of vaccination), by conspiracy theorists who contend the sincerity of government actors and pharmaceuticals regarding the emergence of the virus, and the management of its spread. The vaccine controversy has been one of the major foci of misinformation and disinformation in the digital media, with a lot of measures taken to counter false narratives, including developing algorithms for factchecking and deletion of fake news.
It was also observed that governments of different nations have been putting measures in place to absorb economic shocks from the pandemic. An example is the Indonesian government’s efforts to develop policies on job creation and retention during the pandemic, including the endorsement of teleworking, wage subsidy programs, reskilling and upskilling and the distribution of unemployment benefits documented in UNICEF’s May 2021 report on economic impacts of COVID-19 in Indonesia. South Africa was reported to have set aside about 160m USD to support businesses and about 8.4bn USD to subsidize taxation and provide cushion for the unemployed, while Senegal initiated the 2.1m Euro Force COVID-19 as a major national response to cushion the effects of the pandemic.
Within national economies, private firms also adjusted through both process and product innovation with the embrace of ICTs for e-commerce and teleworking. As per the investment drive, there has been a movement from physical to intangible capital leading to more adoption of cashless payments. There has also been increase in the use of digital labour applications for transportation/ courier, online market platforms and cryptocurrencies, gradually gaining legitimacy for trade transactions. However, there remains a significant margin in the utilization of digital tools between big economies and low-income countries, with the deficiency owning to expensive internet services, dependency on cash transactions, poor technological know-how, lack of trust, and underdevelopment of e-commerce.
Recommendations
There is need for governments to consolidate technological gains within national economies on the road to economic recovery as the world advances towards transiting into a post-pandemic era. Members of international and regional bodies should thus collaborate to bridge the digital gap, especially with regards to the deployment of digital tools for education and the economy. This could be achieved by scaling up investments in technological development, encouragement of home-grown inventors and provision of enabling policies and environment for equitable access to technology and information.
Similar to this, the World Health Organisation needs to devise new strategies in ensuring inclusive interventions that incorporates societies at the margins to facilitate equitable access to vaccines, especially as state apparatuses in sub-Saharan Africa have not been effective conduit for the vaccination processes. The call for temporary patent waiver on COVID-19 vaccines remains central to coming out of the pandemic as equitable access to vaccination could make the process shorter than currently being estimated. The deployment of digital tools for knowledge-sharing, within an era of limited travels, would aid developing countries in the production of their own vaccines and could also create employment for the shrinking labour force. Beyond this is the need to strengthen health institutions in developing countries by building well-equipped primary and tertiary infrastructures, and staffing with well-trained personnel versed in managing public health emergencies in line with the demands of the 21st Century.
African governments must leverage on the creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as key players in the industrialization and manufacturing drive, rather than ceding production to external actors while serving basically as consumers. The continent must embrace the use of modern technology to aid the belated drive for economic diversification. This includes the use of nationally generated reliable data for capturing both micro- and macro-economic spaces to aid fiscal planning and development at the national and regional levels. The digitization of the informal sector should thus be a primary objective, while ensuring the protection of data privacy rights to manage apathy from the citizenry.