Practical Wisdom and Resilience Overcoming Downside Risk: Grassroots Voices in Africa Under COVID-19

This book classifies and assesses the real and perceived risks associated with both the Covid-19 pandemic and government responses to it in seven African countries — DR Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe — based on large scale quantitative and qualitative surveys conducted in 2022–2024. It also elucidates the people’s resilience in overcoming the risks within their political, social, and cultural context. Although research on COVID-19 has been conducted in various fields, particularly in the medical field, the analytical perspective of this book is unique. COVID-19 prevention policies are considered to have seriously increased other risks, such as hunger, other infectious diseases, interruption of education, and various types of human rights violations, including increased conflict, violence against civilians, and political abuse. Therefore, this book argues that COVID-19 prevention policies, as well as the pandemic itself, should be regarded as the downside risk that triggers the deterioration of the other potential risks to vulnerable people. Depicted here is the account of how trust in government, community, and family, within the existing political, social, and cultural environment, created pandemic politics, as elections during the pandemic instrumentalized and politicized government prevention measures. Economic distress threatened people's lives more than COVID-19 during lockdowns and severe behavioral restrictions, and the spread of misinformation discouraged people from being vaccinated. This book will be useful to policy makers and practitioners in international society who are preparing for the next pandemic based on the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.