African Economic Research Consortium will host its 53rd plenary session on ‘Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic and Public Finance in Africa – Challenges and Opportunities’ on December 7, 2020.
The sessions will be held virtually where researchers, academics, policy makers, and non-state actors will discuss the impact of COVID-19 on public finance in Africa in terms of the challenges ahead and opportunities afforded.
The official opening of this session will be by Botswana’s Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Thapelo C. Matsheka, and the ‘Policy Panel’ led and chaired by Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, where leaders of central banks and revenue authorities will be represented.
“While the African continent has registered relatively lower deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries have put in place a wide range of restrictions on businesses operations and mobility of people to contain the spread of the virus and has impacted negatively on economic activities.
“The growth outlook for 2020 for Africa hovered around 3.2 per cent before the pandemic struck, which is one of the lowest since 2013. Thus, growth and the capacity for growth in African economies was already fragile. What is less emphasised in these perilous times is Africa’s weak capacity of health care systems and the health care infrastructure beyond the governance issues that have emerged.
“These are all likely to exacerbate the pandemic and will have very negative impact on the African economies, thus reversing the gains of poverty reduction and human capital developments that have been achieved in the last 20 years,” said AERC’s Executive Director, Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u.
