The impact of COVID‐19 on African economies: An introduction

Over the last 14 months, Africa and the entire world experienced the worst Socioeconomic challenges of alarming proportion. Specifically, on 30 December 2019, an epidemiological alert was issued by the Chinese Wuhan local health authority of the emergence of a new strand of coronavirus - severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV - 2) - which causes what has come to be known as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Governments' economic responses included fiscal, expansionary monetary and macro-financial policies, as well as exchange rate/balance of payments adjustments. Following the approval of of some vaccines for emergency use in developed countries, vaccination is gradually progressing in Africa - after what was dubbed "vaccine nationalism" in parts of Europe, preventing the exportation of vaccines to Africa, and thus prompting the intervention of Covax (the GAVI Vaccine Alliance) to help procure vaccines for African countries.