The Kenyan President extended the country's National curfew implemented on March 27th and the lockdown of
Nairobi metropolitan, Kilifi, and Mombasa for another 21 days. The lockdown which
started on April 6th has now gone for 41 days and is expected to end on June 5th.
It is a strategy that is implemented to fight Covid-19 in most countries in the
globe but its success varies from one country to the other. In East
Africa, Uganda and Rwanda have more strict lockdowns than Kenya. Tanzania has
not yet instituted either curfew or lockdown of its districts. South Sudan and Burundi
have used the same measures as Tanzania; closure of borders and schools.
Ministries
of Health and Ministers responsible for EAC Affairs on Covid-19 met before President Kagame of Rwanda convened a meeting of heads of State via zoom who majorly discussed
the facilitation of free movement of goods during the Covid-19 period https://www.eac.int/covid-19. Other issues on the agenda were; to share the information on the fight against
Covid-19, contact tracing and the mandatory testing of truck drivers facilitating
transport of essential goods. That was
good development for EAC but is that enough for the most developed regional
bloc in Africa? Some of collective measures set by EAC include; partner States
to support local production and availability of key consumables and products
used in Covid-19 response, establishment of surveillance system for contact
tracing by each partner State, continued implementation of 14 day quarantine,
each partner State to facilitate free movement of goods and services and suspension
of face meetings replaced by tech-based meetings. EAC partner States have not
had a discussion on common regional and coordinated curfew, National lockdown
and movement restriction since the disease was confirmed in East Africa in late
March.
EAC
Partner States ended up implementing the WHO recommended guidelines in
different capacities as they deem fit to their citizens. This however brings
the question of cooperation in the region as the EAC borders are mostly porus
and open for movement of goods. Education institutions, prayer places, public
gatherings have been closed, movement restricted,
internal and external border
crossed, public transport restricted, non-food sellers suspended and a 19.00hours
curfew implemented in Uganda and Rwanda with borders open for goods and
citizens returning home. Kenya and Rwanda has partially opened up restaurants with
Kenya permitting public transport, motos, and Tanzania planning to relax their
measures in the coming days. In Burundi,
Tanzania and South Sudan, the WHO measures and EAC directives have been implemented
narrowly. Despite Tanzania at 509 confirmed cases as of May 17th,
the second affected country in EAC after Kenya, it has not taken any measures
to close public places nor institute movement restrictions over the affected
areas.
Such
responses either by individual partner State or as a region are recommendable.
However, EAC aims to attain political federation and now may be the time to
test such potential but the facts are not close to the expectations as Tanzania misses a meeting over division allegationshttps://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/ea/Tanzania-says-east-africa-meeting-was-northern-corridor-affair/4552908-5554304-i0gujgz/index.html. EAC'c cooperation is considered one of it]s strong holds and currently, the magnitude of its integration is being tested. The community is capable of employing the same measures in
each partner State at the same degree of magnitude. An example is Rwanda, Kenya
and Uganda which has had 21-day and 14-day country-specific lockdowns. Rwanda
and Uganda have had nationwide lockdown for a period of 14-days renewed thrice
while Kenya has had 21-day partial lockdown renewed twice. Rwanda lifted the national
lockdown on May 4th since March 22nd and eased the lockdown
rules and Uganda is planning to follow the steps from June 2nd. What if the six partner States had agreed to
implement a 21-day national lockdown when the first case was confirmed in each
of the States, gradually increased testing rates, supported local production of
PPEs, universal mask wearing, mandatory social distancing and multi-sectorial
action plans instead of considering the virus as health sector business? Would
there be a difference on the rate of confirmed cases, recoveries and deaths in
the region?
Hi to everyone and to the author.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing a such valuable article questioning the African regionalism in context of the Covid-19 Crisis, with case study of EAC. All over the world, the implemented measures to face the crisis has shown their limit within integrated blocs. Every country went in solo, and consequently, the expected outcome was different, even in the UE considered as the prototype of regional integration.
This said, people should understand that countries all over the globe are the same: they are more guided by national interest than regional one's. Besides, the challenging things in all this was that country were trying to preserve people lives and the economies at the same time. Look at what is happening in Brazil. They know that they have progressed in the past decade, locking down the economy will have disastrous outcome. Then the challenge remains, will people be producing and dying? How will the impact be contained? In worse of cases, the the lock down may intervene by constrain and in a such context, concerned countries will simultaneously lose lives and their economy, while it still was possible to make a good balance.
I feel like, this is case of countries like South Sudan, Burundi and Tanzania. And of course,African countries should not be condemned that much about the strategies they chose. They are poor, and locking them down simply mean authorities create another problem over Covid-19. So, analyses should be balanced. And let's see if their eternal partners will provide them with found to overcome the crisis...
There is still much to be done...