How Prepared are Developing Countries for the Aftermath of the Corona virus Pandemic?

The outbreak of the Corona virus pandemic has brought so much anxiety and untold suffering in the world. Not only has the pandemic received unprecedented world renown and attention within a short period of time than any other pandemic, but it has also revealed how ill-prepared even supposedly advanced nations can be. Who ever thought a virus could so decimate the civilized world as this pandemic has done? Though proud and arrogant, man is a very vulnerable and fragile creature! With all our apparent cunning and boasted wisdom we couldn’t stem let alone squeeze the corona bug in time to prevent untold suffering and potentially huge economic losses! How unfortunate. If only the outbreak of this pandemic was known in advance, at least something could have been done to contain its onslaught before it unleashed itself on unsuspecting masses earth with full force. It is sad that so many people have lost their lives in so short a period of time.

Preparedness for pandemic

Very few countries, if any, were adequately prepared to counteract the effects of the Corona virus pandemic not to mention its deadly attack. To my knowledge all nations were caught off-guard and their responses to the outbreak were mostly reactive and rather feeble. No wonder why so many lives have been lost! The lower infection rates in some regions may not be attributed to their being proactive but rather to chance or other factors we may know not of especially when we take into account the fact that those nations that were in a better position to protect themselves are the worst hit.

This pandemic has brought out so many issues. It has shown how porous and flawed our early warning and response systems are. It has also highlighted the mediocrity of our public health and social protection systems and policies.

State of public health and social protection systems

The pandemic has highlighted something that had been almost forgotten by policy makers across the world in the past few decades; the importance of expenditure on public health and social protection systems.

This makes a lot of sense when we consider what has become a normal and seemingly prestigious trend or practice in some developing countries. Most of these countries have done very little to develop or upgrade their health infrastructure and institutions. This neglect has even been reinforced due to the fact that scarcely any high profile people ever get to use them. What do we hear whenever these people get sick? Evacuated to South Africa, India, such and such a country for specialist treatment! Apparently, all sicknesses involving high profile figures are specialist cases, whatever that means! There is a Bemba  saying which says “akachila kambushi kasengula apo kekele”, which literally implies that one needs to take care of where they live. The pandemic has clearly shown that this mentality of rushing to other countries whenever we fall sick will never take us anywhere. We had better take care of and utilize what we have!

With government commitment and the cooperation of the people, recent massive development of public infrastructure including health institutions may help a lot in stemming this trend.

When calamities strike it is usually those on the fringes of social and economic spectra who suffer the most. They are also often the last to recover from the ravages of disasters. Social protection programs could therefore play a very big role in relieving the effects of the pandemic on the poor. Such initiatives as social cash transfer, farmer input support programs, and other social safety nets will go a long way in mitigating the adverse effects of the pandemic especially in developing countries. However, since the current social programs in these countries may not be that effective in addressing the challenges posed by the pandemic, it could help a lot if such initiatives were restructured so that they effectively respond to the needs of the masses, especially the poor.

Looming economic recession

Generally, developing countries, especially those in Africa have not been that much affected by the corona virus pandemic compared to countries in the west. The repercussions of containment measures are however likely to be with us for some time. The current looming economic downturn is one such repercussion. Though there are a number of policy options available to developing countries to mitigate the effects, they have very little room to manoeuvre due to a heavy debt burden and dependence on commodity exports for foreign exchange revenue.  While developed countries like the US have economic relief laws that includes rounds of stimulus payments for most of their taxpayers,as well as loan programs for businesses to be able to keep paying their employees in a bid to combat the looming recession, most developing countries cannot sustain such programs.

Falling export earnings for developing countries

Developing countries, particularly commodity exporters, face the threat of lower export returns due to a stronger dollar. This scenario is most likely brought about by externalization of capital as investors seek safe havens for their investments.For instance, US$83 billion has already been removed from emerging markets, the largest outflow ever recorded.

Though developing countries have limited capacity to deal with the aftermath of the pandemic, there is still something that can be done in addition to social protection programs alluded to above:

1. Easing fiscal and monetary policy
2. Renegotiating loans with creditor nations and institutions
3. Accessing IMF Special Drawing Rights reserve asset facility to supplement local reserves
4. Applying for IMF’s Catastrophe Containment and Relief (CCR)Trust financial grant

However, countries with huge debt burdens have a lot of negotiation to do to access financial help.

Reflections on looming recession

These threats to the world and local economies are very real especially when we take into account the fact that most countries’ economies had not been doing that well due to trade wars by the time the pandemic struck. What the pandemic has done is to worsen the already fragile economic outlook of countries the world over. Since most countries are not involved in optimal production due to containment measures like lock downs and mobility restrictions, it is just natural that their GDPs will fall. That is why there are looming fears of a world- wide recession, which recession has already begun showing its ugly head.

Related posts

Ordinary Zambians and Covid 19

June 09, 2020

Subscribe by Email

Follow Updates Articles from This Blog via Email