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While the direct health impact of the Covid-19 pandemic for the countries of sub-Saharan Africa remains unclear, the contours of the likely economic consequences may be easier to discern, but they do not look good. The combination of domestic lockdowns - many of which were put in place quickly and aggressively in the second week of March -- and the spill-over from the global recession means immediate and severe hardship. This paper uses epidemiological and macroeconomic models to calibrate the scale of the combined shock to a representative low-income African economy and to examine the medium-term macroeconomic adjustment challenge confronting domestic policymakers and international donors. All the public policy options are grim. International donor finance could make a significant difference to the recovery and outlook for poverty.
Christopher Adam is Professor of Development Economics at ODID and Lead Academic for the International Growth Centre (IGC) programme in Tanzania. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as member of the DFID-IMF research program on the macroeconomics of low-income countries. From 2003-05 he served as external Macroeconomic Adviser to the Policy Division at the Department for International Development (DFID) and represented DFID as Vice Chair of the African Economic Research Consortium from 2006 to 2016. In 2011-12 he served as Special Advisor to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee Inquiry into Aid Effectiveness.