Economics and the Covid-19 Crisis
The fourth Rethinking Economics for Africa Festival examined the economic and social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and what the crisis revealed about prevailing economic systems and ideas.
More than a year into the pandemic, countries faced profoundly unequal health and economic outcomes, difficult paths to recovery and urgent questions about financing healthcare, livelihoods and public services. The Festival considered both the immediate policy response and the longer-term changes needed to build more just and resilient economies.
The programme was organised around four streams:
- how economics understood, or misunderstood, the crisis;
- economics’ blind spot of social reproduction;
- emerging trends in economic thinking after the crisis; and
- the impact of the crisis on African economies.
Eighteen recorded sessions explored whether Covid-19 constituted a crisis of capitalism, how economics should be taught after the pandemic and what heterodox economic approaches could contribute to recovery.
Participants examined the gendered effects of the crisis, care and social reproduction, land and agrarian questions, and the potential role of a universal basic income grant. Other sessions addressed ecological alternatives, digitalisation, finance and financialisation, African debt, fiscal policy, trade, informal livelihoods and the possible return of state-led economic models.
Films and discussions complemented the lectures, creating space to reflect on how the pandemic affected communities, workers and students.
By connecting the pandemic to structural inequalities and longstanding economic debates, the Festival moved beyond treating Covid-19 as a temporary disruption. It invited participants to consider what a socially just, ecologically sustainable and genuinely transformative post-pandemic economy could look like.
