Restricting trade to control the pandemic damages livelihoods, especially those of the urban poor. The control of future pandemics must strike a balance between health and economic activity.
Africa’s industries are not growing at the same pace as its cities, leaving the informal economy as the main source of income for many. COVID-19 lockdowns have cut this umbilical cord.
A Tanzanian farmer tractor driver in Makuyuni, Arusha, Tanzania.
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David Harris, Bangor University; Jordan Chamberlin, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and Kai Mausch, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)
Smallholder farming might not be able to generate enough value on its own, but farmers still need support.
Mozambique uses income as a measure of poverty. On this basis, poverty has declined over the past two decades.
ANTONIO SILVA/epa
Income is a useful measure for tracking economic progress over time. But a broader lens is needed to understand the relational and often political ways in which poverty emerges and is reproduced.