COVID-19 Digital Technology Response in Sub-Saharan African Countries

Introduction

The Coronavirus infection primarily transmitted via contact and respiratory droplets (Gates, 2020; Kuca, 2020) was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (International Labour Organization, 2020) on the 11th of March 2020 (Haman, 2020). Eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an average of 54, 014, 420 confirmed infection cases and 1, 313, 563 deaths globally (International Labour Organization, 2020). The African continent recorded its first case of COVID-19 in Egypt on February 14, 2020, and thereafter, there have been reported COVID-19 infection cases in a total of 52 African countries (World Health Organization, 2020; Kalantaryan and McMahon, 2020). The realization is that the efforts made towards eradicating poverty are being forfeited as the pandemic has increased global poverty, given that many Sub-Saharan African countries just like many other nations in the world are experiencing a drastic economic recession (Sumner et al., 2020). Due to this many people were rendered jobless without a meaningful livelihood (International Labour Organization, 2020), while small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were unable to operate causing some to eventually fold up, while big organizations were forced to change their business operations to use digital means to guide and adapt to new company measures (Dwivedi et al., 2020).

This study reflects on one of the targets of sustainable development goal (SDG) 9, which is to significantly increase the access to information and communications technology (ICT) to different sectors such as the healthcare sector, educational, government, and private organizations, and strive to provide universal and affordable internet access in the least developed countries by 2030. The several levels of strict lockdown strategies implemented by governments globally to limit the COVID-19 pandemic compelled organizations to encourage their staff to work from home (Dwivedi, et al., 2020). While essential sectors like the health systems in the Sub-Saharan Africa region faced many challenges such as equipment, data and service inadequacy, staffing, lack of medical infrastructure, poor deployment to meet medical outcome demands, lack of maintenance of medical equipment and instruments, management of clinical data, lack of new medical innovation and designs, lack of access to treatment and communication before the COVID-19 pandemic occurrence (Walsham, 2020; Ben, 2020). Hence, the lack of health information systems increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and the existing degeneration of the health sector became overwhelming due to the demand for medical treatment caused by the pandemic hazard (Walsham, 2020).

In adherence to this directive, the citizens of many Sub-Saharan African countries and the staff of many organizations have adopted the use of Wi-Fi connections in their homes, which in turn have promoted the use of digital technologies in both organization and human lives (Katz et al., 2020). In addition, the education sector across the world is compelled to replace in-person classrooms with online lesson delivery (Said et al., 2020; Mpungose and Khoza, 2020). While Sub-Saharan African countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, etc. declared national health emergencies, broad travel restrictions, and border closure to reduce the spread and death rate caused by the coronavirus (World Economic Outlook, 2018). Many organizations ordered the closure of offices and the global stock market were declined which affected the economies of their countries (World Economic Outlook, 2018).

The efforts made to curtail the spread of the pandemic across nations included testing, strict quarantine, evaluation of interventions with mobility data and communication with the public, contact tracing, early population surveillance, and the creation of vaccination sites (Whitelaw et al., 2020). Amidst the pandemic, many of these Sub-Saharan African countries were able to seek for solutions to navigate their economies, while adhering to the lockdown directive of their government (Ozili, 2020). Also, many of the Sub-Sharan African countries relapsed into a recession that had not occurred in more than 50 years in the year 2020 due to the COVID–19 pandemic, as many of these countries GDP declined by 2.1% and might increase by 3.4% or more in the future if the issue is not adequately addressed (Ozili, 2020).

International donors such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Bank, the Department for International Development (DFID), and the Gates Foundation, have all made financial donations to the World Health Organization (WHO) and low- and middle-income countries to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic (see Table 1 adapted from Ozili, 2020).