Member-only story
Is Coronavirus Teaching Africa Something Instead?
While corona virus is causing damage and apocalyptic fear across the globe, it comes with some lessons to the human kind. Over the past 6 decades, most countries have been stockpiling weapons of mass destruction in a bid to prepare for a possible World War III. This ignored what Bill Gate’s referred to the ‘21st Century global catastrophe’ which will not be a nuke but a microbe that can frustrate an unprepared public health system and an effective pandemic response. World cities from New York to Barcelona, from Rome to Paris, they all lay lifeless as they are put on lock-down and people practice social distancing.
While Western countries like the United States,Canada and Italy are shutting down with small businesses closing, more than 60% of African household income comes from the informal sector. The big question would be, can we survive a shut-down or will our people die from hunger and starvation even before the virus gets to them? Of course we can borrow good ideas from the West but not in wholesale as some of their problems are not even a concern in our continent. For instance, while people are fighting over toilet papers in stores during this catastrophe, more than a third of Africans would be worried about how to put food on their table.
First, it is now more certain than ever that the world is an actual global village. Today…
