COVID-19 and Microeconomic Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Study on Ethiopian and Nigerian Households

Abstract

The severity of the COVID-19 pandemic on overall welfare depends on the resilience of microeconomic units, particularly households, to cope and recover from the shocks created by the pandemic. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where the pandemic has been less pervasive, the pandemic is expected to increase food insecurity, vulnerability, and ultimately poverty. To accurately measure the welfare impact of the pandemic on the macroeconomy, it is important to account for the distributional impact on households and the ability of households to cope with it, which reflects their microeconomic resilience. In this paper, we seek to determine the differential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on household microeconomic resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa. We use direct measurements of economic indicators to measure the impact of the pandemic on 6249 households across Ethiopia and Nigeria. Given that resilience is a latent variable, the FAO’s Resilience Index Measure Analysis (RIMA) framework is utilized to construct the resilience index. We hypothesize that the pandemic created differential economic impacts among households and ultimately household microeconomic resilience. Study findings show that government containment measures improved household microeconomic resilience, while self-containment measures lowered microeconomic resilience. Additionally, households that relied on wage employment and non-farm businesses as their main source of livelihood were found to be more microeconomic resilient.

Livelihood Changes, Spatial Anticontagion Policy Effects, and Structural Resilience of National Food Systems in a Sub-Saharan African Country Context: A Panel Machine Learning Approach

“…Again, as the extenuating impact of the pandemic still has some societies in stranglehold, the outcomes remain uncertain, and reliable data are sparsely available, especially from the sub-Saharan African region (Galanakis 2020;OECD 2021;UN 2023). As a result, most of the studies relied on macro-level data and outlooks (Coluccia et al 2021;Galanakis 2020;Giwa-Daramola and James 2023;Markandya et al 2021;OECD 2021;Swinnen and McDermott 2020). Our study fills this gap, as we use primary micro-level data to answer the above questions and provide fresh insights into the ravaging livelihood changes of farming system actors from a sub-Saharan African context.…”

“…Disruptions to the food system were caused by COVID-19, therefore, they may have implications for the nearly 60 percent of the population that are directly and indirectly employed in the sector and the overall economies of these countries. The continued disruption of the food system and supply chains and the weak policies and programs that poorly address food policy challenges may also have some implications for social unrest in the already-fragile sub-Saharan African region (Barrett 2020;Giwa-Daramola and James 2023). This research provides guidance and indications for the government of Ghana and other countries across the sub-region to effectively address the unwanted effects of COVID-19 on the food system.…”

“…and its containment policies continue to impact the livelihoods of food system actors at an unprecedented scale (Carducci et al 2021;Giwa-Daramola and James 2023;Moseley and Battersby 2020;UN 2023). Ebbing and resurging, COVID-19 amplified the existing livelihood challenges, especially in low-and middle-income countries (Carducci et al 2021; FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and WFP (World Food Program) 2022; Webb et al 2021;Giwa-Daramola and James 2023;Moseley and Battersby 2020).…”

“…and its containment policies continue to impact the livelihoods of food system actors at an unprecedented scale (Carducci et al 2021;Giwa-Daramola and James 2023;Moseley and Battersby 2020;UN 2023). Ebbing and resurging, COVID-19 amplified the existing livelihood challenges, especially in low-and middle-income countries (Carducci et al 2021; FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and WFP (World Food Program) 2022; Webb et al 2021;Giwa-Daramola and James 2023;Moseley and Battersby 2020). SARS-CoV-2 is not a foodborne virus; however, its disruption to socioeconomic factors, food systems, and the everyday life of food system actors has had tremendous repercussions for their income and food and nutrition security (Cable et al 2020;Dasgupta and Robinson 2022;Webb et al 2021;Giwa-Daramola and James 2023;UN 2022UN , 2023.…”

“…Also, sociocultural differences and nuances in the food system operations in sub-Saharan Africa may offer a different context. Thus, these are compelling reasons to understand the effects of COVID-19 on local food systems in sub-Saharan Africa (Barrett 2020;Swinnen and Vos 2021;Giwa-Daramola and James 2023). Again, as the extenuating impact of the pandemic still has some societies in stranglehold, the outcomes remain uncertain, and reliable data are sparsely available, especially from the sub-Saharan African region (Galanakis 2020;OECD 2021;UN 2023).…”