Why have so many African leaders died of COVID-19

Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft

The research is motivated by the need to determine the impact of South Africa’s COVID-19 regulations on its quality of democracy. It takes into account the interests of individual (liberal) rights in competition with the state’s interests of public security. Theoretical assumptions, based on classical democratic theories, which rely on the separation of powers and checks-and-balance principles, were used. The South African government architecture is assessed, especially in the context of accountability and oversight requirements. For this purpose, the relationship between the legislature and executive is most relevant. The South African government decided on a state of disaster to manage the pandemic, but it is contrasted with a state of emergency as the constitutional alternative. Its implementation, especially the institutional framework used for it, is analysed. The role of Parliament during the pandemic is used as an important test of the quality of democracy. The conclusions ar...

Global Social Welfare, 2021

Since independence, African governments have been criticized for either their slow, ineffective, or lack of homegrown solutions when addressing challenges in their respective countries. From economic and development models to dealing with conflicts, governance practices, and planning, overreliance and dependence on external practices which sometimes fail to take into consideration the unique domestic challenges have characterized the response of many African governments. This has, in turn, tainted the image of the continent over their ability to adequately deal with disasters. As the rest of the world is struggling to deal with their share of challenges as a result of the pandemic, it is becoming increasingly important that every country adopts measures that will effectively deal with the spread of the disease. This essay seeks to step back from the seemingly crowded debate over where the next epicentre of COVID 19 will be in Africa and focus on what lessons and measures governments in Africa can adopt during and after the pandemic.

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, 2020

PurposeThis paper provides a critical analysis of the South African government's response to the COVID-19 crisis and its effect on state finances and budgets.Design/methodology/approachThe paper critically analyses publicly available data.FindingsThe South African government's initial health response was praised by the international community, given the early lockdown and extensive testing regime. The lockdown devastated an already precarious economy, which led to negative social consequences. The initial lockdown delayed the epidemic, but subsequently, the infection rate climbed, requiring new restrictions, suggesting further economic disruption. The government has had to increase its borrowings, while the future tax take is forecast to be significantly reduced, a combination which will lead to a severely constrained public purse for many years to come. This will limit the government's ability to address the basic social needs that predated the COVID-19 crisis.Originali...

People Centered- The Journal of Development Administration, 2022

Nigeria like other countries of the world had great expectations for year 2020. These hopes were cut short by the emergence coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its sudden spread. The resultant effect was the closure of national economies, imposition of lockdown in cities, boarder closure and many more. COVID-19 became a pandemic having adverse effect on human sustainability. Using qualitative approach through content analysis of secondary data, this study will consider the global pandemic and the spiral effect on the nation and spiritual leadership with particular reference to Nigeria. It will bring to light the preparedness, position as well as adequacy of the nation to tackle the pandemic. The study revealed that pandemic has permeated religious settings causing a disruption in order of services, and also has affected government finance, administration as well as demand on social service delivery. This paper therefore, recommended that government should promote indigenous research and adequately finance the health sector to aid in properly positioning the system towards sailing through similar occurrences.

International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research, 2023

This research article aims to bring to the attention of African leaders and their respective constituents the importance of healthcare systems and policies in national development strategy. The author recognizes the decades-old internal and external challenges that African leaders have been facing since the late ‘70s and ‘80s. Yet, he argues that African leaders should be accountable for their development policy failures even though their supporters may absolve them. The article depicts the consequences of neglecting the healthcare sector and services of many African leaders and expounds on their dire effects on African families. Further, it describes how African leaders outsourced their national development policies to international experts and specialized multilateral agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO). It also discusses how ill-prepared and vulnerable several African countries were when facing life-threatening diseases without running for help to foreign donors and the international community. As such, the outbreak of Covid-19 revealed the limitations of those development policy prescriptions and shed light on Africa’s political leadership failure and what had been ailing Africa’s development policy strategies for decades Keywords: Africa, Covid-19, Development Strategy JEL Codes: N 47, E00, O1, O2

Journal of Risk and Financial Management

The eruption of the novel virus brought to the global scene the prediction that Africa would be worse hit by the pandemic. This prediction was partly built on the widely recognized fact that Africa is the continent with the weakest public health care system and the lowest budgetary allocations to health. However, contrary to this prediction, the COVID-19 death rate in Africa has been low compared to in other continents. Debates on Africa’s low COVID-19 death rate have generated mixed reactions, the majority of which have centred on beliefs and superstition about hot weather and Africa’s youth-dominated society. Little or none of these reactions have attributed the low COVID-19 death rate to swift and prudent budgetary adjustment, which partly aided a swift response from some African governments. Indeed, not many studies have examined the swiftness in the response of some African governments and prudent budgetary adjustment in tackling the spread of COVID-19. This paper, through seco...

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown nations of the world into serious health, economic and political challenges. However, more worrisome is the attitudes of some African countries in the management of the challenges that the pandemic brought about. This paper assessed the politics of COVID-19 management in Nigeria. The objectives of the paper were to examine the preparedness of Nigeria in handling social, economic and health emergencies like the pandemic; assess the role of politics in the management of the pandemic in Nigeria, especially the palliatives provision and distributions and highlight the effects of politicized management of socioeconomic emergencies as COVID-19. The paper adopted secondary and personal observations as method of data collection. Through a descriptive analysis, the paper found that the public institutions particularly health are not proactive enough to effective manage emergencies; the most individuals and organisations that contributed on the Coalition against COVID-19 (CACOVID) did so with possible hidden intentions and government distribution of the palliatives provided was mired in personal, party and other petty interests. Consequently, the paper recommended that among other things; both the civil society organizations and the media are important tools for checkmating possible excesses of government and her agents and should act out as such, leaders at all levels of government should be more patriotic in dealing with the people, organized private sectors should not be overtly or covertly coerced before performing their corporate social responsibilities to their host communities and government should ensure remarkable budget cuts on political spending to reasonably increase envelopes for health and education facilities.

Irish Studies in International Affairs, 2021

NETSOL: New Trends in Social and Liberal Sciences, 2023

The South African Response to COVID-19 edited by Pieter Fourie and Guy Lamb provides an alternative perspective on the epidemic. Alternative in the sense that the book shifts the narrative away from the Western perspectives that dominated the COVID-19 discourse. The book in its entirety provides readers with a realist South African perspectives, positions, and understanding of an event so momentous that it will be long remembered as a defining moment in human history. Pieter Fourie introduces us to the book with a poignant quote from Louis Pasteur; 'the pathogen is nothing, the terrain is everything.' In the case of South Africa this could not apply more. Routledge published the book in 'Studies on Health in Africa' series. The editors, Fourie and Lamb, both academics at the prestigious Stellenbosch University, have stuck to academic rigidity in their editorial oversight resulting in a book that reads more like a collection of journal articles, than a book with interwoven chapters. As a pure academic product, I believe what the editors had in mind was to produce a reference textbook for future researchers to study and build upon. While the chapters focus on various sociological, economic, cultural, and epidemiological, the research approach hardly ventures out of a political science methodology, and we see a lot of comparative politics and policy analysis on display. This slightly hinders the flow of discussion as

International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Research, 2020

The purpose of this study was to examine Africa`s reaction to the coronavirus pandemic since its appearance in China in November 2019 and subsequent rapid proliferation worldwide, including Africa. The ultimate goal was to use the disaster management narratives and strategies formulated not only in Africa but elsewhere, to help in pointing the way forward for Africa. Although all the continents took steps to address the challenge, the case of Africa was bound to raise eyebrows because despite the rich natural endowments of the continent, it has still been regarded as backward, with some observers doubting it could cope with anendemic of such a magnitude. As such, we sought to determine whether Africa was present or absent during the COVID-19 outbreak.Methodology: We analyzed secondary research sources such as published articles, speeches, press releases and books; as well as online sources, notably the Google website, and institutional databases such as that of the United Nations organizations. We employed the post-structural/structural theoretical framework of "presented signifiers" referring to "absented signifieds" in order to gain a deeper epistemological understanding of the notions of presentation, representation, and representation as they relate to Africa in the context of COVID-19. .Findings: Our study revealed that while Africa wasjust like the other continents-taken by surprise by the outbreak, it still took a number of preventive measures and patient treatment that contributed in curbing the spread of the disease. The proof is that the huge numbers of casualties that some observers had predicted for Africa did not materialize as anticipated, especially at a time when the progression curve of the pandemic is believed to have started peaking already. Instead, in terms of number of people infected, the dead and the recovered, Africa seems to have done rather well.Conclusions: COVID-19 has undoubtedly served as an eyeopener to African policy makers. Firstly, it gives them the opportunity to prepare their countries better for a subsequent pandemic. Secondly, the crisis has exposed weaknesses in public policy and governance which African nations must seriously address. One of them is the realization that corruption is still endemic on the continent, the reason being that some officials abused COVID-19 resources placed at their disposal for the benefit of the general public. Africa will also have to strengthen its social policy in terms of education and literacy, as well as provide better health services.