COVID-19 and the Media in Sub-Saharan Africa

COVID-19 and the Media in Sub-Saharan Africa PDF

Author: Carol Azungi Dralega

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2022-09-19

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1803822716

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This critical research collection focuses on Eastern and Southern Africa providing timely and valuable insights and reflections around the changes and stabilities within media ecosystems caused by the novel Covid-19 crises.

Health Crises and Media Discourses in Sub-Saharan Africa

Health Crises and Media Discourses in Sub-Saharan Africa PDF

Author: Carol Azungi Dralega

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-05-24

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 3030951006

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This is an open access book which brings together leading scholars and critical discourses on political, economic, legal, technological, socio-cultural and systemic changes and continuities intersecting media and health crises in Sub-Saharan Africa. The volume extensively discusses COVID-19 but it also covers other epidemics, such as malaria, HIV/AIDS as well as “silent” health crises such as mental health---simmering across the subcontinent. The chapters fill knowledge gaps, highlight innovations, unpack the complexities surrounding the media ecosystem in times of health crises. They explore, among other issues, the politics of public health communication; infodemics; existential threats to media viability; draconian legislations; threats to journalists/journalism; COVID-related entrepreneurship, marginalization, and more. This is a timely resource for academics, advocacy groups, media practitioners and policy makers working on crises and media reporting, not just in Africa but anywhere in the global South.

Africa's Pulse, No. 21, Spring 2020

Africa's Pulse, No. 21, Spring 2020 PDF

Author: Cesar Calderon

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 1464815682

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The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on human life and brought major disruption to economic activity across the world. Despite a late arrival, the COVID-19 virus has spread rapidly across Sub-Saharan Africa in recent weeks. Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to decline from 2.4 percent in 2019 to -2.1 to -5.1 percent in 2020, the first recession in the region in 25 years. The coronavirus is hitting the region’s three largest economies —Nigeria, South Africa, and Angola— in a context of persistently weak growth and investment. In particular, countries that depend on oil and mining exports would be hit the hardest. The negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis on household welfare would be equally dramatic. African policymakers need to develop a two-pronged strategy of “saving lives and protecting livelihoods.†? This strategy includes relief measures and recovery measures aimed at strengthening health systems, providing income support to workers and liquidity support to viable businesses. However, financing of these policies will be challenging amid deteriorating fiscal positions and heightened public debt vulnerabilities. Therefore, African countries will require financial assistance from their development partners -including COVID-19 related multilateral assistance and a debt service stand still with creditors.

Constitutional Resilience and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Constitutional Resilience and the COVID-19 Pandemic PDF

Author: Ebenezer Durojaye

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-11-17

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 3031064011

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This book explores the resilience of constitutional government in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, connecting and comparing perspectives from ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa to global trends. In emergency situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, a state has the right and duty under both international law and domestic constitutional law to take appropriate steps to protect the health and security of its population. Emergency regimes may allow for the suspension or limitation of normal constitutional government and even human rights. Those measures are not a license for authoritarian rule, but they must conform to legal standards of necessity, reasonableness, and proportionality that limit state action in ways appropriate to the maintenance of the rule of law in the context of a public health emergency. Bringing together established and emerging African scholars from ten countries, this book looks at the impact government emergency responses to the pandemic have on the functions of the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, as well as the protection of human rights. It also considers whether and to what extent government emergency responses were consistent with international human rights law, in particular with the standards of legality, necessity, proportionality, and non-discrimination in the Siracusa Principles.

COVID-19 and Psychological Distress in Africa

COVID-19 and Psychological Distress in Africa PDF

Author: Yamikani Ndasauka

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-12-22

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1003849881

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This timely book draws on unique African experiences to explore the intersection between mental health and African communitarianism in the context of COVID-19, giving voice to the perspectives of vulnerable populations facing pre-existing challenges such as depression, anxiety, and stress. Advancing knowledge and contributing to the global debate about the effects of the pandemic on the psychological well-being of African people, chapters critique the role of media, information, misinformation, and disinformation during this period on individual- and community-based mental health. Using a holistic approach, the book highlights the need to prioritise the localising of mental health systems and clinical services to provide a better standard of care and comprehensive, context-specific mental health interventions that consider the heterogeneity within and between African regions. The book demonstrates through nuanced evidence and analysis that communitarian perspectives allow African societies to balance collective solidarity with individual well-being to benefit overall mental health. Ultimately drawing on communal values and localised knowledge to cultivate resilience to fight the psychosocial impacts of COVID-19 in Africa, the book will be of interest to scholars, postgraduate students and researchers exploring psychology, philosophy of mental health, and public health policy more broadly, as well as and cultural studies and the sociology of pandemics.

One Virus, Two Countries

One Virus, Two Countries PDF

Author: Steven Friedman

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2021-11

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 177614743X

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Has South Africa ‘done well’ at limiting illness and deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic? Academic and political commentator, Steven Friedman, thinks not. While the country’s mainstream media believes it has, in his view the evidence tells another story. South Africa has experienced by far the most cases and deaths in Africa – at one point as many as the rest of the continent combined. One Virus, Two Countries: What Covid-19 tells us about South Africa offers a searing analysis of government and expert scientists’ responses to the pandemic. Friedman argues that South Africa is two societies in one – a ‘First World’ which resembles Western Europe and North America, and a ‘Third World’ which looks much like the rest of Africa or South Asia. The South African state, the media and the scientific community have largely tried to deal with the virus through a ‘First World’ lens in which much of the country was either invisible or a problem – not a partner. Friedman argues this approach prevented the country from responding in a way which would have protected most citizens. This is why case numbers and deaths are so high: South Africa has done worse than the rest of Africa not despite the fact that it has a ‘more developed’ health system, but because it does. One Virus, Two Countries is a controversial book that will rouse much needed debate about South Africa’s health and economic system in a context of serious inequality.

COVID-19 in the Global South

COVID-19 in the Global South PDF

Author: Carmody, Pádraig

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2020-10-21

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 1529215897

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Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Bringing together a range of experts across various sectors, this important volume explores some of the key issues that have arisen in the Global South with the COVID-19 pandemic. Situating the worldwide health crisis within broader processes of globalisation, the book investigates implications for development and gender, as well as the effects on migration, climate change and economic inequality. Contributors consider how widespread and long-lasting responses to the pandemic should be, while paying particular attention to the accentuated risks faced by vulnerable populations. Providing answers that will be essential to development practitioners and policy makers, the book offers vital insights into how the impact of COVID-19 can be mitigated in some of the most challenging socio-economic contexts worldwide.

The economic costs of COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from a simulation exercise for Ghana

The economic costs of COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from a simulation exercise for Ghana PDF

Author: Amewu, Sena

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2020-06-12

Total Pages: 24

ISBN-13:

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The objective in this paper is to estimate the economic costs of COVID-19 policies and external shocks in a developing country context, with a focus on agri-food system impacts. Ghana is selected as a case study. Ghana recorded its first two cases of COVID-19 infection on 12 March 2020. The government responded by gradually introducing social distancing measures, travel restrictions, border closures, and eventually a partial, two-week “partial” lockdown in the country’s largest metropolitan areas of Accra and Kumasi. Social distancing measures have been enforced nationwide and include bans on conferences, workshops, and sporting and religious events, as well as the closure of bars and nightclubs. All educational institutions are also closed. The partial lockdown measures in urban areas directed all residents to remain home except for essential business, prohibited non-essential inter-city travel and transport, and only essential manufacturing and services operations were permitted to continue (The Presidency 2020). At the time the lockdown was announced, Ghana’s Ministry of Finance revised its GDP growth estimate for 2020 downwards from 6.8 to 1.5 percent (MoF 2020), although the Minister warned that growth could fall further if lockdown measures were extended. The lockdown was initially extended for a third week but was officially lifted on 20 April. Social distancing measures remain in place nationwide, although a gradual easing of restrictions commenced in June. Ghana’s borders remain closed at the time of writing.

Identifying Future Disease Hot Spots

Identifying Future Disease Hot Spots PDF

Author: Melinda Moore

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Published: 2016-09-12

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 0833095749

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The Infectious Disease Vulnerability Index is intended to inform actions for preparedness and response to infectious disease outbreaks and foster greater resiliency of national health systems worldwide.

Regional Economic Outlook, April 2020, Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional Economic Outlook, April 2020, Sub-Saharan Africa PDF

Author: International Monetary Fund. African Dept.

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2020-04-15

Total Pages: 67

ISBN-13: 1513536834

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Sub-Saharan Africa is facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis that threatens to throw the region off its stride, reversing the encouraging development progress of recent years. Furthermore, by exacting a heavy human toll, upending livelihoods, and damaging business and government balance sheets, the crisis threatens to retard the region’s growth prospects in the years to come. Previous crises tended to impact affect countries in the region differentially, but no country will be spared this time.