To avert a social crisis, Covid-19 measures must reintegrate the forgotten
“Working from home” has become the mantra of the Covid-19 era. But two months on, the dark side of digitization of the economy is becoming increasingly clear across many African countries.
A new class structure is emerging. The “remotes” own and control money. Using digitization, they can work from anywhere and maintain their pre-Coronavirus lifestyle, albeit with restrictions on their movement. “Front-liners,” on the other hand, are essential workers, such as nurses, who risk it all for the well-being of others. While they still have work, every day is fraught with risk as they lack sufficient protection themselves.
At the “bottom” tier are low-level workers in informal sectors, such as casual laborers, street hawkers or market traders. Their source of livelihood has been drastically reduced due to restrictions on movement, and other virus containment measures. Joining their ranks are the newly-unemployed, including domestic employees sent home because their stay-at-home employers are afraid of infection. Or low-paid farm workers, and staff from the hospitality, manufacturing, and other sectors, laid off due to reduced business.
Unlike the remotes, these unpaid employees cannot “work from home.” They are the forgotten. For them, social distancing is impossible because they’re packed into poor neighborhoods and slums. With their source of livelihood cut off, they are the face of the looming global food crisis. The World Food Program warns that 265 million people are on the brink of starvation.
As food prices go up, the remotes they can still afford to pay and in scarcity, they can stock their homes. Should the future of work depend on the remotes, the essentials will remain largely employed but not the unpaid and the forgotten.
While their situation is not as dire as the forgotten ones in urban areas, many forgotten ones in the rural areas face more challenges due to the lack of government infrastructures and basic amenities. To avert more crises, authorities must improve access to basic amenities in the rural areas.
Whether wars or pandemics, social crises tend to alienate people. Physical distancing and remote working rhetoric are fine for the remote. But these measures reinforce existing inequalities against the essentials, the unpaid, and the forgotten. To avoid creating a growing class of people who are stalked by starvation and victimization, governments need to act quickly and decisively to reintegrate the unpaid and the forgotten.
Written by Dorcas Abimbola Omole
This article is part of Covid-19 Food/Future, an initiative under TMG ThinkTank for Sustainability’s SEWOH Lab project (https://www.tmg-thinktank.com/sewoh-lab). It aims at providing a unique and direct insight into the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on national and local food systems. Also follow @CovidFoodFuture, our Video Diaries From Nairobi, and @TMG_think on Twitter. Funding for this initiative is provided by BMZ, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
