Covid-19: Can Africa Cope?

The answer to the question is: “Yes, of course! Africa can cope”.

No one is suggesting that this would be easy; but the knowledge required to address the situation is there, and as long as people followed the instructions issued by the relevant authorities, there is no reason to speculate that Africa can’t cope.

Bhopal, India: December 1984

In the aftermath of this terrible disaster, the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme had carried an interview during which the presenter had apparently questioned whether India had the doctors to cope with the situation.

“Of course, not”, was our lecturer’s response during his Media and Society lecture later that day, “Sure, all their doctors are working here in the UK!”

Our lecturer might also have been trying to remind us then of our obligation (perhaps, as future potential BBC Radio 4 Today presenters or even foreign correspondents) not to speculate or make assumptions when it comes to how we talk about certain places (especially, outside Europe) and their citizens?

The World: 2020

The current Covid-19 pandemic has led to justifiable concerns as to how it can be tackled by respective countries. The world-wide nature of the virus has also meant the African continent has not been spared, while trans-national travel has led some people to worry about the risk of the virus arriving in their own territory from an African country.

Unfortunately, the questions being asked, or rather the speculations being made, is whether African countries would be able to cope with the Covid-19 crisis, instead of finding out what already existed on the ground and present in Africa: the knowledge, human capability, the resilience Africans display in the face of adversity, etc.

Science and Technology

Tackling the Covid-19 crisis requires, apart from a good Community-based Health Planning and Services, the intervention of Science and Technology, and the importance of the latter in Africa has long been acknowledged.

Barely one year after Ghana gained its independence on the 6th of March, 1957 from Britain, the National Research Council was established in August, 1958; this was later to become the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in February, 1959.

Below, is a summary introductory history of the CSIR and a list of its thirteen institutes:

Africa Science Week

Africa Science Week is another manifestation of how high a value Africa places on Science and Technology, hence a programme for young people.

Ebola outbreak 2014-2016

When the Ebola virus disease first broke out in three West African countries in 2014, similar speculations were made as to how the neighbouring countries will be able to cope. Nigeria was to prove that such speculation should always be avoided.

Nigeria, therefore, forced us to rethink assumptions commonly made about certain countries’ ability to respond to a crisis, and to respect their knowledge and capabilities.

Ghana, Nigeria’s neighbour [three countries removed west], was one of the countries to take prompt action to address the Covid-19 crisis; the CSIR also identifies Biomedical and Public Health as one of seven thematic areas.

Women in STEM 

Djibouti and Somalia are two countries in the Horn of Africa region which promote STEM among girls and women, thus fulfilling their obligations regarding the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); or rather, dispelling commonly held assumptions regarding attitudes towards girls and women in Africa, and especially in the Islamic societies on the continent.

Africa’s Science and Technology Ambassadors

As the world waits in the hope that this Covid-19 crisis comes to pass sooner rather than later, friends of Africa should rest assured that the knowledge needed to combat the disease, as well as for addressing the Science and Technology needs of its citizens, can be found among Africans themselves; more specifically, in the hands of the ambassadors below: