KAMPALA: When Mr Daudi Bifama was asked by Bugisu Cooperative Union [BCU, his employer] to stay away from work as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, it was an unprecedented shock.
And like everyone else who was asked, he voluntarily complied with the order hoping that when Covid 19 comes down, he would regain her job.
But almost two years down the road, even when Covid has relatively gone down, Mr Bifama has not been called back to his job.
He has been left wondering, ‘Without my career, how do I define myself? What is my identity?’ Then, he was struck with an answer; “I now don’t know where my next pay cheque will come from”.
And while it’s no secret that suddenly being unemployed can have drastic economic implications, the immediate problem presented to Mr Bifama is more psychological than financial.
Mr Bifama is not alone; many people, who lost their jobs as a result of Covid 19 in March of 2020, have remained at home without jobs to date.
The World Economic Forum says, COVID-19 has caused a huge amount of lost working hours, and the resulting lockdown caused 114 million people to lose their jobs over 2020 worldwide and that it has impacted greatly on people’s livelihoods, their health and our food systems.
A joint statement released by ILO, FAO, IFAD and WHO on Impact of COVID-19 also says Covid 19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide and presents an unprecedented challenge to public health, food systems and work.
The statement dated October 13, adds that the economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating: people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people could increase.
Mr Felix Richer in his paper entitled; COVID Crisis Results in Staggering Loss of Working Hours dated January 27 says according to the latest edition of the ILO Monitor, 114 million jobs were lost in 2020.
This comes at the heels of a new data survey by Sauti za Wananchi that indicates that since the Covid 19 break out, domestic workers have suffered many kinds of impacts resulting from the pandemic, one of the main consequences of COVID-19 has been a reduction of working hours and, in some cases, a loss of jobs, resulting from fear and restricted mobility associated with confinement measures.
The Sauti Za Wananchi data says one out of ten citizens (8%) has no work to go back to after Covid 19 period and that this is slightly higher in urban areas (10%) compared to rural (7%).
The survey adds that among those who have no work to go back to, four out of ten (39%) say they will have to depend on friends and family, while others say they will either produce more food (15%) or use food stocks that they already have (14%).
“It is clear that one out of ten citizens has no work to go back after the lockdown and of those who operate a business, 6 out of 10 will continue operating, this will have a great effect of the livelihood of the citizens across the country,” reads the report in part entitled Citizens’ experiences of food and livelihoods amid the Covid 19 outbreak.
The data paints a dark picture that many enterprises face an existential threat and that he workforce are at risk of losing their livelihoods.
It adds that the informal economy workers are particularly vulnerable because the majority lacks social protection and access to quality health care and have lost access to productive assets.
And without the means to earn an income during lockdowns, many are unable to feed themselves and their families,” says the report in part.
While presenting the report Ms Maria Nanyanzi said the data reveals that four out 4-6 out of 10 children (61%) aged 6-12 months have the same food as the rest of the household. something that is likely to cause malnutrition.
She added that in two out of ten households (19%), such children have a different meal, and a similar number (17%) are breastfed. In rural households (65%), poorer households (67%) and those with lower levels of education (69%), young children are more likely to share the same food as everyone else.
The data from Twaweza’s Sauti za Wananchi survey says Covid 19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life and presents an unprecedented challenge to public health, food systems and the world of work.
The survey adds that many people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people could increase since four out of ten households report food intake has worsened.
This brief presents data on Ugandan citizens’ experiences and views on matters of food, farming and livelihoods during the COVID-19 outbreak. How are citizens’ working lives changing? How are their eating habits and household spending changing? Have they noticed changes in the availability of food? What agricultural activities are they engaged in, and what challenges do they face in doing so? And what coping strategies do citizens have access to in case of struggles for money or food? Data for the brief comes from Twaweza’s Sauti za Wananchi survey. Sauti za Wananchi is a nationally-representative, high-frequency mobile phone panel survey. Information on the overall methodology is available at www.twaweza.org/sauti.
The data were collected from 1,600 respondents in the sixteenth round of calls to the Sauti za Wananchi panel, conducted between May 18 and June 4, 2020 and the data were collected and released in partnership with the Food Rights Alliance and Hivos.
The survey data says that even when the lockdown in Uganda is a key part of the national response to the outbreak, and has thus far been highly effective at limiting the impact on people’s health and lives, among many new challenges presented is the need to protect livelihoods and the economy from the negative effects of lockdown.
Mr Livingstone Giruli, the LCV chairman for Sironko says that even when people are asked to stay at home as much as possible, and when transport networks are suspended along with schools, offices, shops and many other businesses, citizens’ livelihoods suffer from unprecedented strain.
“Without work, income drops. Without income, accessing essential products such as food can become difficult. In turn, this can affect public health. It is important, therefore, that the effects of lockdown on citizens’ livelihoods are monitored as closely as the spread of the virus,” said Mr Giruli.
Mr Giruli says the pandemic has affected people’s vulnerability to further shocks, affecting socio-economic health determinants such as livelihoods, remittances and household income – reflected in the COVID-19 related displacement of two of our participants.
The data that comes from Twaweza’s Sauti za Wananchi survey, a nationally-representative, high-frequency mobile phone panel survey of public opinion and citizens’ experiences says these are among the nine out of ten (90%) citizens who did so three or more times whereas the official COVID-19 burden has remained relatively low in Uganda, the impact to people’s daily lives, income and livelihoods due to public health responses is a big one.
Mr John Baptist Nambeshe the opposition chief whip in parliament said the pandemic has affected the entire food system and has laid bare its fragility as border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures prevented farmers from accessing markets.
Mr Nambeshe who is the MP for Bududa constituency said it has also prevented farmers from buying inputs and selling their produce, and agricultural workers from harvesting crops, thus disrupting domestic food supply chains and reducing access to healthy, safe and diverse diets.
The Twaweza’s Sauti za Wananchi survey further says seven out of ten citizens report worrying about running short of food in the previous month Seven out of ten citizens (70%) report having worried about running out of food at least once in the previous month due to a lack of money or other resources and that a little under half (43%) report having had such worries five or more times over the same period.
“And a majority of citizens (57%) report having been forced to consume only one type of food at some point in the previous month due to a lack of money and a similar number (55%) report having reduced the size of adult household members’ meals, and four out of ten (39%) report doing this with children’s meals,” reads the report in part.
“A quarter of households (27%) report that their children had gone hungry over this period and one out of six (16%) report that a child / children went for a whole day without eating at least once due to a lack of money or other resources,” it adds.
The survey adds that due to Covid 19, female-headed households are less engaged in agricultural activities and have less-secure land holdings and that four out of ten female-headed households (43%) engage in growing and selling crops, fruit and vegetables, compared with five out of ten (52%) male-headed households.
Ms Nanyanzi says there has been unsurprisingly, less focus on the economic face of Covid-19 in Uganda and that Sauti za Wananchi: Livelihoods, Food Security and Covid-19 is part of a series of outputs that aim to shed light on citizens’ economic experiences amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
She revealed that evidence from around the world has shown that responses to the pandemic are more effective when due consideration is given to citizen perspectives and urged the many critical institutions of the Government of Uganda, and the myriad of other actors, involved in one way or another in response to this pandemic to seek citizen feedback, views and experiences and incorporate them as they work.
“The pandemic requires a whole of society response to be managed well; Citizens, the President, teachers, lawyers and engineers, and all of us have a role to play and this brief aims to pay attention to the roles played by all actors in society, including citizens themselves,” Ms Nakyanzi said.
The survey concludes that, given the collaboration required to address Covid-19 and its many consequences, government response will need to be infused with transparency in order to address the need to protect livelihoods and the economy from the negative effects of lockdown.
Mr Nambeshe says it is time for national solidarity and support, especially with the most vulnerable in our society adding that only then we can overcome the intertwined health and social and economic impacts of the pandemic and prevent its escalation into a protracted humanitarian catastrophe.