COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa: impacts on vulnerable populations and sustaining home-grown solutions

© 2020, The Canadian Public Health Association. This commentary draws on sub-Saharan African health researchers’ accounts of their countries’ responses to control the spread of COVID-19, including social and health impacts, home-grown solutions, and gaps in knowledge. Limited human and material resources for infection control and lack of understanding or appreciation by the government of the realities of vulnerable populations have contributed to failed interventions to curb transmission, and further deepened inequalities. Some governments have adapted or limited lockdowns due to the negative impacts on livelihoods and taken specific measures to minimize the impact on the most vulnerable citizens. However, these measures may not reach the majority of the poor. Yet, African countries’ responses to COVID-19 have also included a range of innovations, including diversification of local businesses to produce personal protective equipment, disinfectants, test kits, etc., which may expand domestic manufacturing capabilities and deepen self-reliance. African and high-income governments, donors, non-governmental organizations, and businesses should work to strengthen existing health system capacity and back African-led business. Social scientific understandings of public perceptions, their interactions with COVID-19 control measures, and studies on promising clinical interventions are needed. However, a decolonizing response to COVID-19 must include explicit and meaningful commitments to sharing the power—the authority and resources—to study and endorse solutions

Projets de développement et réactivation des conflits entre les Pygmées Bakola/Bagyeli et leurs voisins Ngumba et Ewondo

Cet article présente la construction par des ONG des infrastructures sociales pour les Pygmées Bakola/Bagyeli, et s’intéresse à la réactivation des confl qui prévalent entre les Pygmées et leurs voisins Ngumba et Ewondo suite à la mise en œuvre des projets dits de « développement ». À partir d’un travail d’enquête de terrain dans les villages de Ngoyang et de Bidjouka, nous analysons les raisons qui sous-tendent ces confl qui sont survenus au lendemain de la mise en œuvre de ces plans sociaux. Le présent texte retrace les attitudes et les comportements des différents acteurs à travers la logique de leurs représentations sociales qui se révèlent dans les actes quotidiens de l’interaction sociale et qui sont de notre point de vue générateurs de conflit.This paper presents the construction of social infrastructures by NGOs for the Bakola/Bagyeli people and is interested in reactivating conflict prevailing between the Pygmies and their neighbors Ngumba and Ewondo following the implementation of the so-called “development projects”. From a field survey work in the villages of Ngoyang and Bidjouka, we analyze the reasons behind these conflict that occurred after the implementation of these social plans. This text traces the attitudes and behaviors of different actors through the logic of their social representations that reveal themselves in the daily acts of social interaction and are, from our point of view, generating conflict