Effects of Pandemic on Economy in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Case of Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Abstract

The Outbreak of the COVID-19 had presented an unprecedented threat to the global economy. The contemporary disease is spreading exponentially across the continent of Africa and the pandemic has been felt in all the countries of Africa. In this study we examined the effects of the pandemic on economy in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using the COVID-19 as a case study, we adopted the envisage model in explaining the interaction between economic agents and how the outbreak of the COVID-19 has affected the relationships between them. We used probit regression model to analysis the effects of COVID-19 on the economic measures, we found unemployment rate and oil prices statistically significant at 5% and 10% respectively. All the price value are measured in US$. The study concluded that COVID-19 has affected the SSA economy negatively and we proffer that government should cut down their expenditure especially the salaries of political officers and appointees, however we accounted for the shortcomings of this paper which lies in the erratic and the unstable nature of COVID-19 data.