The world now wears a new mask of broad socio-economic, health and diplomatic uncertainties, as many countries now face multiple crises that would continue to interact at complex trajectories spanning several sectors – including the health, finance, trade sectors, and an unprecedented disruptions to supply chain, commodity prices, corporate insolvency risk, dwindling revenue, looming job loss and the worst fall in oil pricing.
For the first time since the Great Depression and Second World War II, both advanced and emerging economies are diving deep into recession as a result of the continual collapse of activities in major sectors of the global economy caused by preventive and the precautionary measures to curtail COVID-19, particularly the lockdown policy. Growth rate of advanced economies is projected at -6.1 per cent, while emerging economies with normal growth levels above advanced economies are projected to have a negative growth rate of -1.0 per cent in 2020.
The focus is on the effect of the pandemic on startups, and small, medium and large scale enterprises, and the creative solution curves. This crisis clearly requires large scale level and multi-front support for these categories of businesses in order to lay a healthy economic recovery foundation.
On the health front, the second jeopardy comes with an increasing mortality from Lassa fever crisis – as at April 16, 2020 more than 188 Nigerians had died in three months with 963 cases confirmed in 27 states leaving Nigeria’s weak health sector with a daunting and unavoidable task of balancing and handling two complicated health crisis at the same time.
The continual escalation of the pandemic and its attendant impact on Nigeria’s economy and health sectors require government‘s sustained coordination of concrete policies that would cushion the scaling effects on businesses. Beyond the Central Bank of Nigeria’s fiscal stimulus package that covers a N50billion credit facility to households and small and medium enterprises most affected by the pandemic, it also requires a N100 billion loan to the health sector, a N1trillion to the manufacturing sector, and a revision downloads from nine to five per cent of the interest rates on all CBN interventions to effectively implementing fiscal and monetary policy measures.
Nigeria, like other emerging economies, now has an opportunity to rescind the “developing nations” designation which they have been used to since the current divide between the developed and developing worlds started in the 20th century after the fall of the Soviet Union and from the end of the Cold War.
Governments like Nigeria’s can invest in their industrial and tech base, and cities like Aba and Lagos where quality personal protective equipment (PPE), masks and testing equipment could be made for domestic use and donated to other nations as Nigeria’s foreign aid.
We cannot always be an aid-receiving nation. Nigeria could have manufactured millions of face masks to be distributed to all the 36 states of the federation and millions sent to Italy and Spain as part of our support toward the global fight against the pandemic.
Ekpa, Stanley Ekpa, Esq.,
ekpastanleyekpa@gmail.com
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