As the world is currently being ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, nations are grappling with how to contain the spread and limit its effect with their borders. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has reported 873 cases of COVID-19, and 28 deaths as of April 23rd. The government has implemented a range of measures to curb the spread, including the closure of international airports, primary, secondary and tertiary institutions, markets/stores, and halting of all public gatherings. On March 29th, a four-week statewide^[1] lockdown was declared in three major states - Lagos, Abuja and Ogun - halting all non-essential activities across all three states.

These closures, while essential, are having negative ripple effects across all sectors and segments of the country. The macro effects on the economy have been documented, ranging from a fall in both aggregate supply and demand, decline in exports and rise in overall government spending, but much less has been said about the effects on the people who are the first to bear the brunt of the impact: individuals, micro and small enterprises, and daily wage earners operating in the informal sector^[2]. 

Profile of People Affected

According to the International Labour Organisation, in Nigeria, over 80% of working people are employed in the informal sector. The affected lockdown states include three of the most urbanized states in Nigeria, signifying that the impact of the lockdown would be skewed toward those who perform urban informal sector economic activities. Such activities include (but is not limited to) street trading and vending, micro and small scale manufacturing, repair and service provision, home-based enterprises,  informal employees of formal enterprises (making daily/weekly wages).

For the vast majority of people engaged in these economic activities, they are daily-wage earners who either rely on income generated from going to work at a physical location on a daily basis/weekly basis, be it as an employee for someone, or as a micro/small entrepreneur.

People in this population belong to the category of people who are most vulnerable to the negative economic shocks surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Their income-generating activities are more closely tied to the daily whims of the market. To wit, for this category of people, their ability to meet their immediate basic needs such as access to food, shelter, and health services, predicated on daily access to face-to-face interactions and customer flow. This article provides an in-depth description of the group most likely to be affected by the lockdown.

Essentially, this lockdown effectively stops all income-generating activities for people engaged in non-essential services. Additionally, with this lockdown occurring in urbanized states, there’s the intensifying impact of rising food prices in these states, driven by disrupted food supply chains and panic buying. For this population, faced with a loss of access to income-generating activities, and without the luxury of an income that allows bulk purchasing and the home infrastructure (electricity and adequate refrigeration to store food), the impact of slight increases in the cost of living could be dire.

Liquid Precautionary Savings

For most households whose income stream has been temporarily blocked, they would need to find other means to sustain their livelihoods during this lockdown period. Cue in savings, which is widely known to cushion and help manage the uncertainty that weighs on an individual/household’s income. The general advice is to build precautionary savings during periods of high income, to help smooth consumption during periods of low income. For those who have access to modest incomes far and above their basic needs, this advice is practical; however, for the vast majority of people being negatively impacted by the COVID-19, this advice might not be feasible.

Given the link between poverty and the informal sector in Nigeria, it is realistic to assume that the informal sector serves as a source of employment for the poor, absorbing low-level education holders, and those unable to secure wage employment in the formal sector. Therefore, income levels are relatively lower for people working in the informal sector. Though it is an avenue to secure a reasonable source of income for people, the informal sector is also riddled with challenges, not least of which is income security.

The interplay of these factors - low income and income security, coupled with huge familial responsibilities that are representative of Nigerian households, high cost of living in urban areas, and poor social safety nets, translates to a hand-to-mouth mode of living for urban informal sector workers. For the vast majority of micro and small businesses/daily earners, their earnings are so low that the concept of ‘rainy-day’ savings/investments is a luxury. Income in this population is generally so low that it offers less wiggle room to make choices about how to use money. The urgency to satisfy immediate needs given limited resources blankets the capacity to contemplate a savings/investment plan for the future.

This is not to negate the fact that households in this population engage in several consumption smoothing mechanisms. However, for individuals working in this sector, their incomes are only fluid enough to allow them consumption smoothing for periods of anticipated income fluctuations, for example, based on seasons. Some may have savings in forms that do not lend themselves to immediate liquidity e.g. assets. For some micro-entrepreneurs, they might be stuck with the repayment and high-interest loans associated with predatory loans; this is especially pertinent for women who are often the target and recipients of microloans. For households with some savings, some are overburdened (because a large proportion of the population is dependent on a large workforce), and for others, the persistence of the lockdown beyond a certain time period will throw them into a precarious situation.

The reality is bleak: the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched the consumption volatility of financially constrained households who are regularly unable to smooth consumption.

Current Government Intervention

The Federal Government (FG) has taken several steps toward cushioning the effect of this lockdown on the most vulnerable populations. As of (insert date), the following interventions had been announced:

• A plan to distribute food rations to the most vulnerable households in the three lockdown states. The plan is to deploy 77,000 metric tons of food to vulnerable households in the three affected states, and to continue school feeding programs across the country.

• A conditional cash transfer of N20,000 per month (up to four months) to the most vulnerable households. For identifying the most vulnerable households, the FG is utilizing the National Social Register of Poor and Vulnerable Households set up in 2016 by the Buhari administration.

• The Lagos state government announced a plan to feed at least 200,000 households.

• The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)  announced a N50 billion targeted credit facility geared towards households, and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

These interventions, however commendable, will likely not be enough to mitigate the losses that will accrue to households during the lockdown, and unfortunately would likely not reach all the people affected. As has been depicted above, the vast majority of the people affected would be ‘the urban poor’. As this article shows, the current social protection registry consists largely of agricultural and rural households, who are less likely to be negatively affected by the economic shocks of COVID-19. For various reasons, most importantly being that most agrarian/rural households tend to produce what they eat, and the food supply chain has been excluded from the lockdown.

The National Social Register consists of about 11 million people from about 2.6 million households. If at all the register contained the target population, it doesn’t begin to scrape the bottom of the barrel.  For example, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the informal economy in Lagos employs almost 5.5 million people, representing about three-quarters of the state's 7.5 million labour force population. With 5.5 million people in Lagos alone, catering to the needs of at least three-quarters of the 13 million non-working population, these cash transfers are unlikely to make a huge dent. The president had mentioned that the number of households on the registry would be increased by 1 million, to about 3.6 million, but even with this, the reach is limited and targeting issues still exist.

Some systemic problems also arise. In general, the government has not announced any key details of any of the interventions announced, which limits the scope for accountability. No information is known about who is getting the money, therefore no evaluative judgment can be made about the impact of the funds. Additionally, given the lack of a comprehensive database of informal workers, and their institutional financial exclusion, there is the added risk that the funds will not reach the right people. With the credit facility being provided by the CBN, beneficiaries can access funds to a ceiling of N3 million; however, qualification requires proof of collateral, such as property, which is exclusionary for the most vulnerable households.

On a macro level, these safety nets cannot be sustained for long periods of time. A lockdown means that the economy, in general, is not producing, and people are not consuming. Given the recent drop in oil prices, a halt in economic activities within the country also signifies that the country will be generating meager revenue. Additionally, remittances from international development partners will decrease, given the global socio-economic impact of the pandemic. Given these, It would be impossible to continue wealth distribution if there are no economic activities yielding revenue for the government.

What are/will be the effects? - Two Possible Scenarios

Scenario 1 - The lockdown is lifted after the end of the fourth week: Ideal case, given the circumstances.

Nigeria is able to contain the virus and flatten the proverbial infection curve by the end of the four-week lock-down period. The affected states can begin the process of slowly restarting the economy and recovering from the effects of the lockdown, making sure to create and adhere to well thought out and conscientiously managed restrictions to prevent a second wave/widespread outbreak. Some sectors of the economy, tourism for example, will still be halted, especially if the global threat still persists. Given the circumstances, this will be the best-case scenario. But even at this, for this population, the economic ramifications and the disruptions to livelihoods are inevitable and will be long-term, and the rebuilding process will outlast the presence of the virus in the country.

There will be a reduction in overall consumer purchasing power because of widespread job loss and lost earning time. Recovery will be slow, but without a second-wave of the infections, it will be steady. People are able to return to work or venture out to seek new employment opportunities.

Scenario 2 - Lockdown is extended for another one-month period (or an undefined time): A series of compounding events triggering a vicious reinforcing cycle: As coronavirus deepens poverty, poverty worsens its spread.

The nation continues to see a rise in the number of new COVID-19 cases across the country, forcing a situation where the lockdown is extended. Travel across states is banned, so emigration out of the affected states would be difficult.

At a certain point, people will no longer be able to bear the suffering associated with the lockdown and will be forced to venture out in search of a chance to survive. Factoring out any punishments from the government associated with breaking the lockdown rules, prematurely returning to life-as-usual, especially in a state as densely populated as Lagos, bears the real risk of exacerbating and worsening the spread of the virus. An outbreak caused by such a situation will disproportionately affect people in the lower socio-economic category i.e. the people who actually need to take the risk of exposure. Without the luxury of adequate medical facilities, or multi-room houses, the spread across this population will be exponential and likely deadlier than we are currently experiencing. 

In this scenario, for the vast majority of affected people, the trade-off is costly: risk the exposure to and probable death by the COVID-19 virus, or death by hunger? Alas, getting infected by the virus might be the lesser of the two evils.

General Societal Effects

For society at large, the consequences could be damning. Overall, these economic and social impacts of the pandemic are set to exacerbate existing societal vulnerabilities. There will be an increase in the persistence and prevalence of poverty with more people being plunged below the poverty line. The gap between the haves and the have nots will widen, and existing social and economic divisions will be intensified.

There has been an increase in social ills, unrest, and theft that is already being reported - due partly to hunger stemming from a loss of jobs, and an increase in the general animosity and resentment that is triggered by socio-economic divides. Security experts have predicted that this is likely to persist well beyond the epidemic.

Long term, specific policy measures must urgently be taken to recognize the value and contribution of the informal economy to society. In the interim, however, the government and private sector need to band together to support individuals and households in this sector.

What can be done?

Action for the government - As a nation, we do not have the luxury of locking down three major states in the nation beyond a one-month period, and the government needs to adequately support the vulnerable population during this time. There is no single silver bullet strategy to solve the problem, and given the limited fiscal capacity of the government, there is a narrow scope for a robust and sustained stimulus package. However, there are a couple of things the government can do to make the best use of available resources:

• Better targeting of the N20,000 stimulus package funds. This article shares some targeting strategies.
• Reduced restrictions for access to CBN loans to make it accessible to the most vulnerable. In line with the loans, the bank would need to engage in sensitization programs, to reach a vast number of micro and small entrepreneurs and assist them in filling out applications or putting together application requirements.
• Stop police harassment of informal regions, which has resulted in the confiscation of goods, fines or physical violence and abuse.

Ultimately, the government also needs to learn from this experience, to develop a proper disaggregated database covering all segments of the population, and to develop better social safety nets to cushion the most vulnerable people during this time.

Actions for private sector actors - The private sector will also have a critical role in supporting and complementing the efforts of the government in supporting the most affected during this precarious time. For employers who have staff that are daily earners (fixed pay or commission workers), as much as possible, they would need to ensure employment continuity for their staff. Given that private sector employers are also not immune from the impact of the economic fallout, they might not be able to sustain their employees during this time; however, rehiring the same employees when the economy restarts would reduce the economic costs on the staff.

Individuals and households with residual income can work toward boosting the local economy once the economy restarts, by supporting local artisans, boost their consumption of local produce, and patronize local services.

We as a society have a moral imperative to support the most affected amongst us. But beyond the moral, there is also an economic one; without effective support for the urban poor, the public health measures implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19 will disintegrate. If this happens, there is a possibility that the nation will experience a wider outbreak of the virus, which could throw us into a longer lock-down in the future. This, unfortunately, could topple the nation into a recession. While we are fighting to curb the spread of the COVID-19, another equally important societal virus lurks poverty. For Nigeria, the economic costs from the risk-control measures are mounting, and may very well outpace and outlast the health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

^[1] Initially two weeks, and extended on April 14th, for another two weeks. 

^[2]Our definition of informality encompasses both formal sector workers who are micro and small enterprises and whose businesses are dependent on daily interactions with customers.

With 1.39 million coronavirus cases  and 79,382 deaths globally, the world continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the outbreak, the outlook for the world economy—and especially developing countries like Nigeria—was fragile, as global GDP growth was estimated to be only 2.5 percent in 2020. While many developing countries have recorded relatively fewer cases—Nigeria currently has 238 confirmed cases and 5 deaths as of this writing—the weak capacity of health care systems in these countries is likely to exacerbate the pandemic and its impact on their economies.

THE IMPACT ON THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY

Before the pandemic, the Nigerian government had been grappling with weak recovery from the 2014 oil price shock, with GDP growth tapering around 2.3 percent in 2019. In February, the IMF revised the 2020 GDP growth rate from 2.5 percent to 2 percent, as a result of relatively low oil prices and limited fiscal space. Relatedly, the country’s debt profile has been a source of concern for policymakers and development practitioners as the most recent estimate puts the debt service-to-revenue ratio at 60 percent, which is likely to worsen amid the steep decline in revenue associated with falling oil prices. These constraining factors will aggravate the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and make it more difficult for the government to weather the crisis.

AGGREGATE DEMAND WILL FALL, BUT GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE WILL RISE

In Nigeria, efforts were already being made to bolster aggregate demand through increased government spending and tax cuts for businesses. The public budget increased from 8.83 trillion naira ($24.53 billion) in 2019 to 10.59 trillion naira ($29.42 billion) in 2020, representing 11 percent of the national GDP, while small businesses have been exempted from company income tax, and the tax rate for medium-sized businesses has been revised downwards from 30 to 20 percent. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 crisis is causing all components of aggregate demand, except for government purchases, to fall (Figure 1).

The fall in household consumption in Nigeria will stem from 1) partial (or full) restrictions on movement, thus causing consumers to spend primarily on essential goods and services; 2) low expectations of future income, particularly by workers in the gig economy that are engaged on a short-term/contract basis, as well as the working poor in the informal economy; and 3) the erosion of wealth and expected wealth as a result of the decline in assets such as stocks and home equity. The federal government has imposed a lockdown in Lagos and Ogun states as well as Abuja (which have the highest number of coronavirus cases combined). Subnational governments have quickly followed suit by imposing lockdowns in their states. Nigeria has a burgeoning gig economy as well as a large informal sector, which contributes 65 percent of its economic output. Movement restrictions have not only reduced the consumption of nonessential commodities in general, but have affected the income-generating capacity of these groups, thus reducing their consumption expenditure.

Investments by firms will be impeded largely due to the uncertainties that come with the pandemic-limited knowledge about the duration of the outbreak, the effectiveness of policy measures, and the reaction of economic agents to these measures—as well as negative investor sentiments, which are causing turbulence in capital markets around the world. Indeed, the crisis has led to a massive decline in stock prices, as the Nigerian Stock Exchange records its worst performance since the 2008 financial crisis, which has eroded the wealth of investors. Taking into consideration the uncertainty that is associated with the pandemic and the negative profit outlook on possible investment projects, firms are likely to hold off on long-term investment decisions.

On the other hand, government purchases will increase as governments, which typically can afford to run budget deficits, utilize fiscal stimulus measures to counteract the fall in consumer spending. However, for governments that are commodity dependent, the fall in the global demand for commodities stemming from the pandemic will significantly increase their fiscal deficits. In Nigeria’s case, the price of Brent crude was just over $26 a barrel on April 2, whereas Nigeria’s budget assumes a price of $57 per barrel and would still have run on a 2.18 trillion naira ($6.05 billion) deficit. Similarly, with oil accounting for 90 percent of Nigeria’s exports, the decline in the demand for oil and oil prices will adversely affect the volume and value of net exports. Indeed, the steep decline in oil prices associated with the pandemic has necessitated that the Nigerian government cut planned expenditure. In fact, on March 18, the minister of finance announced a 1.5 trillion naira ($4.17 billion) cut in nonessential capital spending.

The restrictions on movement of people and border closures foreshadow a decline in exports. Already, countries around the world have closed their borders to nonessential traffic, and global supply chains for exports have been disrupted. Although the exports of countries that devalue their currency due to the fall in the price of commodities (like Nigeria), will become more affordable, the limited markets for nonessential goods and services nullifies the envisaged positive effect on net exports.

WHAT ARE THE POLICY RESPONSES BY THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT?

Already, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has arranged a fiscal stimulus package, including a 50 billion naira ($138.89 million) credit facility to households and small and medium enterprises most affected by the pandemic, a 100 billion naira ($277.78 million) loan to the health sector, and a 1 trillion naira ($2.78 billion) to the manufacturing sector. In addition, the interest rates on all CBN interventions have been revised downwards from 9 to 5 percent, and a one-year moratorium on CBN intervention facilities has been introduced, effective March 1.

With oil being Nigeria’s major source of foreign exchange, amid the steep decline in oil prices, the official exchange rate has been adjusted from 306 to 360 naira. The exchange rate under the investors and exporters (I&E) window has also been adjusted from 360 to 380 naira in order to unify the exchange rates across the I&E window, Bureau de Change, and retail and wholesale windows. Furthermore, the government has introduced import duty waivers for pharmaceutical companies and increased efforts toward ensuring that they receive forex.

WHAT OTHER POLICY RESPONSES CAN BE IMPLEMENTED?

Given the size and scope of the economic impact of the pandemic, there is the need to implement other recovery strategies to stimulate demand. Thus, we recommend the following fiscal and monetary policy measures:

• Although there is a cash transfer program in place, the federal government should improve efforts towards enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the distributive mechanisms to reach households that are worst-hit by the pandemic.
• The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) as well as State Inland Revenue Services (SIRS) should waive payments on personal and corporate income tax for the second quarter of 2020, considering that the shock has affected the income and profits of households and businesses.
• The CBN’s decision to increase the cash reserve ratio (CRR) from 22.5 percent to 27.5 percent in January 2020 should be revisited to provide liquidity for banks so that banks can, in turn, create credit to the private sector.
• FIRS and SIRS should delay tax collection for the worse-hit sectors including tourism, the airline industry, and hoteliers in order to enable them recover from the steep decline in demand.
• To provide additional liquidity in the forex market, the CBN should establish a swap facility with the U.S. Federal Reserve and/or the People’s Bank of China, as was done in 2018, to provide dollar and yen liquidity to financial institutions, investors, and exporters. This move would ease up forex shortage in the financial market and economy.
• While the naira has been adjusted as a result of the forex shortage, it is important that the CBN maintains exchange rate stability by deploying external reserves in order to avoid investors selling off naira-denominated assets.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a wake-up call to policymakers as the unusual and unprecedented nature of the crisis has made it impossible for citizens to rely on foreign health care services and more difficult to solicit for international support given the competing demand for medical supplies and equipment. A more integrated response spanning several sectors—including the health, finance, and trade sectors—is required to address structural issues that make the country less resilient to shocks and limit its range of policy responses. In the long term, tougher decisions need to be made, including but not limited to diversifying the country’s revenue base away from oil exports and improving investments in the health care sector in ensuring that the economy is able to recover quickly from difficult conditions in the future.

This article was first published at Brookings.edu

Here is what we know – COVID-19 has no known cure (at the time of writing this article). We also realize that given the dearth of medical infrastructure in Nigeria, a full-blown pandemic would pose a rather dangerous threat. On the bright side, the mechanism of the disease’s transmission is clear – we know that it happens primarily through close contact with carriers of the causal Coronavirus, either by imbibing virulent bodily fluids (mucus, sputum) from them aerially, or through tactile contact with virus-riddled surfaces. In light of all established knowledge, the primary defence against the spread of the pandemic has therefore been the enforcement of social distancing and self-isolation within affected and at-risk populations, to minimize contact between the infected and uninfected. Countries like China have achieved significant declines in rates of new infections, largely by this method.

What may not be very clear at this point however, is precisely how profound the Nigeria (COVID-19) disease-scenario is. In-country data on infected persons may very well not be completely accurate representations of reality, as tested persons so far have predominantly emerged from the upper end of the income divide – most probably for reasons of limited resources and low knowledge-access among populations at the other end. What is more, the vast majority of Nigerians exist on that poverty side of things, and live in impoverished physical conditions. These groups (who will almost certainly not present for testing, except when compelled to by personal crisis) are potentially a tinderbox for the exponential spread of the pandemic, given the unsanitary environments and lifestyles that their impoverishment reinforces, as well as the fact that the methodologies of social distancing and self-isolation are hardly feasible among their ranks. They are, in addition, significantly less able to access and utilize vital information regarding prevention and management of the disease (for reasons of education and resource-limitation). The point is this – the COVID-19 situation in Nigeria at this time is precarious (in terms of risk to life and health) – perhaps more so than is apparent – and this is largely because of that poverty-dimension. What is more, the current government response of enforced shutdown of economic and other activities within most-hit states ( shutdown will probably be effected in other states soon) will also deeply and adversely affect the livelihoods, and therefore, lives of the poor, whose incomes are often earned and exhausted on the same day.

For these reasons, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria are in very significant jeopardy. According to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), over 2 million Nigerians have been displaced from (Boko Haram) insurgency hotspots in Northeast Nigeria since 2009. These migrants have settled into IDP Camps across the country, which are characterized for the most part by overcrowded populations amidst severe infrastructure deficits. IDP populations in Nigeria are dominated by poorly educated, rural, farm-folk, who are hardly able to achieve meaningful livelihoods in their new, mostly urban settlements. They are for this reason typically impoverished and dependent on humanitarian-aid for even their sustenance; and have very limited access to healthcare or water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) amenities as well. In the past, these terrible living conditions have rendered IDP camps a cesspool for dangerous medical crises – in 2017 for example, there were over 4,800 cases of Cholera and 61 deaths, in an outbreak across IDP Camps in Nigeria.

One can therefore see how this looming COVID-19 pandemic would give cause for grave concern regarding the level of risk their situation exposes Nigeria’s IDPs to – and further to that, how much risk they might  pose to the larger population (could IDP settlements for instance inadvertently become repository-populations for the virus, and vehicles for its proliferation?). In the event that it is not immediately clear, here are some of the reasons for this concern:

WITH CHARACTERISTICALLY LIMITED LIVING-SPACES IN IDP CAMPS, SOCIAL DISTANCING AND SELF-ISOLATION WILL BE DIFFICULT TO ACHIEVE

The reality is that, with regard to how overcrowded they are, most IDP camps in Nigeria are unfit for a healthy living anyway. Typical camps consist of makeshift or poorly-built housing that hold multiple times the number of occupants that they should; while common areas and outdoor spaces, even amidst recent events, constantly have numerous people congregating within them. These IDP Camps are in essence, in the current climate, accidents waiting to happen.

POOR INFORMATION-ACCESS AND LOW EDUCATION-LEVELS COULD HEIGHTEN SPREAD

Information and knowledge have proved formidable, and effective, weapons so far in the fight against the spread of COVID-19. Across the globe, we have seen and learned from other sources, accounts from different countries of how to successfully prevent incidence. Information of this sort might however not be fully appreciated by poorly educated persons such as IDPs, even when they can access it – for lack of proper comprehension of the situation. For instance, some Nigerians still had to be forcibly barred from gathering publicly only recently. This is an attitude that represents a potential to enable spread of the disease amidst measures to curb it. Until the time when observing the reality of the pandemic foists an understanding of the situation’s true gravity upon them, demographics such as the IDP, might function as loopholes for the propagation of COVID-19; in their disregard of safety conventions.

LIMITED ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE MIGHT CAUSE MULTIPLE TYPES OF ADVERSE OUTCOMES

If one envisages a scenario of panic where a great number of IDPs require urgent, life-saving medical care that is in short supply, it is easy to understand how things might escalate at that point. Caregivers to, and family of the dangerously ill (even the moderately ill themselves) might easily in that time succumb to a desperation in their actions, which would put everyone else at risk – in both health and civil terms.

TRUNCATION OF INCOME (FROM LOCKDOWNS) WILL AFFECT IDPs MORE THAN MOST

IDP populations typically have no means of cushioning a cessation of earnings, even for short periods. A situation such as the one that has been imposed in some places, and which portends in others – where all monetary inflow is stopped (during state-wide lockdowns) – simply holds the implication of potential starvation for IDP families. They will not survive without external help.

The state of things is deeply concerning all round, but there are measures that can be taken to  forestall doom:

• Government, as well as humanitarian players, should scale up current response-plans, to cover vulnerable and at-risk populations such as IDPs in every foreseeable dimension during this pandemic – this means adequate healthcare for treatment and prevention, as well as food and other resources needed.
• Communication strategies should be formulated and enacted, which will effectively demonstrate the full dimensions of the current problem to IDPs, alongside proper methods of preventing spread and managing infections. The consequences of aberrant behaviour on everyone involved should be fully explained to them as well – it is paramount at this time to communicate acceptance to IDPs into their host communities, so that within crises they would think and act constructively as community-members, and not destructively as disgruntled outliers.
• Basic, healthcare and WASH facilities should be provided at this time to IDP Camps across the country as preventive measures, to enable them stem spread within their communities.

With all (sanitized and/or washed) hands on (a properly disinfected) deck, we should, IDPs and non-IDPs alike, prevail in the end.

Africa is the world’s least urbanized continent, and yet the rate at which its cities are expanding is growing faster than no other worldwide – at an average of 3.5 percent per year. This growth of urbanization does, however, vary across the continent, ranging from the already heavily urbanized North Africa (47.8 percent) to the least urbanized Sub-Saharan Africa (32.8 percent).The aggregate rate of urbanization on the continent is projected to grow from 40 percent in 2015 to 56 percent in 2050.
The enormous speed at which Africa’s cities are growing is linked to other key development trends, most prominently accelerating economic and population growth, increasing migration from rural to urban areas, and the youth bulge. It is strongly driven by Africans’ perceptions that cities – in contrast to the continent’s rural areas – offer an abundance of livelihood opportunities, including employment and income-generating opportunities, food security, and access to finance, education and social capital as well as social protection.

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Internal displacement has become an unlikely source of rapid urbanization. Specifically, as people affected by violent conflict in rural areas flee to seek refuge, they are finding cities to be an attractive destination. In Nigeria, violent conflict that leads to displacement mainly occurs in rural areas and locations where the reach of government and its institutions are limited—the seemingly ungoverned spaces enabling perpetrators of violence to operate. Cities, on the other hand, have more government presence and are able to be more resilient to sustained insurgent activities that lead to mass displacement.