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- Convenors:
-
Ewald Eisenberg
(University of Applied Sciences Kehl)
Mamane DJIBO (Université Abdou Moumouni)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Corona crisis and new world views
- Location:
- Room 1231
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 8 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
For African municipalities COVID was and is a huge challenge. The panel treats lessons learned from the pandemic situation for African local governments in comparison to their European counterparts: organizational, social, financial and other means of action in order to prevent further disruptions.
Long Abstract:
African countries are engaged in a movement of decentralization in order to stimulate inclusive socio-economic development and make the most of their potentials.
With COVID and also other scourges such as Ebola, new challenges have been created for young municipalities all over Africa.
People are affected in their health and local territories are hit by containments and decline in economic production. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of public services which worked in a context of total uncertainty and were forced to make difficult choices from a social and economic point of view.
Thus, to be better prepared for future crises, it is opportune to share strategies put in place by African municipalities and their European counterparts to anticipate, react and adapt to the disruptions created by health crises as well as to compare the approaches to effectively continue the missions of promotion of local development.
The objective of the panel will be to highlight different practices and share African and European experiences.
It will be a question of learning lessons of the situation created by the pandemic and issuing recommendations on the means of action in order to prevent further disruptions. We will try to learn about the administrative and financial organization of local governments and their legal status to deal with this kind of scourge. Many relevant elements, which justify research, from a critical and constructive perspective,in order to to analyze the management and practices of local stakeholder in the face of a major threat to local development.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 8 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses local health officials' decision-making space and room to manoeuvre in public emergencies. Insights from Rwanda and Ghana help analyze local autonomy, a central promise in decentralization projects.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the decision autonomy of local health authorities in decentralized structures under public health emergencies. A dominant view is that local health agents in liberal regimes gain policing powers to derive and enforce pandemic containment measures while their counterparts in authoritarian systems face an even stricter decision space as top-down decision-making intensifies. The need for efficient governance structures to police containment measures regardless of the regime time is a helpful reconciliation point. Investment in efficiency-oriented projects (e.g., technology and expertise) ensure total central control but might create at once a leeway for autonomous action by local officials. With Covid-19 in focus, this preliminary analysis draws on data from district arenas in Rwanda and Ghana, two good examples of an efficient administration. The perspectives of local health officials are discussed, particularly their room to manoeuvre despite increasing restrictions on their decision spaces. Again as Covid-19 containment efforts opened up the local arenas to very different marginal actors and rationalities, the question of the effectiveness of the policies in Rwanda and Ghana is crucial. The cases divulge at least one instance of the latent consequences of state regulation of different local arenas.
Paper short abstract:
This communication examines the Covid-19 management mechanisms implemented in the commune of Ouagadougou and other communes in West Africa through a literature review and qualitative interviews in the field.
Paper long abstract:
The arrival of Covid-19 in Burkina Faso in March 2020 sparked a massive panic among the population and the counter-offensives carried out by the authorities to curb its spread were respected. Since the first victims were identified, the mechanisms for managing evil have multiplied. As a result, the population quickly changed its view of this condition, which it describes as white or rich, defying, for the vast majority, the response measures put in place. The appearance and spread of the disease through the Burkinabé elite, communication on suspected and proven cases belonging essentially to this category, and certain measures deemed unsuitable for the majority of the country, sealed the assimilation of the disease to a disease of the rich. The average Burkinabé no longer feels concerned by these perceived strategies that are too restrictive, even coercive and largely unfounded in the light of the consequences he must face. Through a pragmatic methodology, This communication focuses on the mechanisms for managing the epidemic in the communes of Burkina Faso and the other communes of West Africa in order to get an idea of the mechanisms for managing the other communes of West Africa in order to lessons on what has worked and shortcomings and make recommendations to properly deal with other disruptions in the future.
Paper long abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented dire challenges and impacted every sector of Africa’s socioeconomic and health space. Medical physics activities have not been spared either. Medical physicists are highly specialized professionals who play essential roles in healthcare by serving as a bridge between patients and technology. They undertake radiation protection and safety, dose optimization, equipment calibration, dosimetry and treatment planning to ensure safe and quality service delivery in radiation medicine. A survey conducted in Africa to assess the pandemic’s impact on medical physics activities and immediate measures to deal with the situation revealed that most radiotherapy centres were forced to adjust workflows and reschedule patient’s treatments. Measures instituted in radiotherapy included introduction of shift schedules, working from home through virtual platforms and switching treatment courses to hypo-fractionation techniques. Many centres lacked dedicated radiotherapy equipment for COVID-19 patients and infrastructure for remote network access to support clinical care. Although innovative ways were adopted to manage the effects, COVID-19 pandemic has exposed critical systemic weaknesses and lessons learnt have called for urgent actions by principal actors in government and the health sector. Recommendations for recovery from the pandemic include boosting domestic capacities through intra-African and south-south cooperation; building urgent clinical infrastructure including radiation medicine capacity; promoting collaboration between African scientists, universities and local manufacturers to innovate and build critical medical equipment like ventilators and 3D printed face visors; creating platforms to scale up collaborative research and training in medical physics and other areas; and revamping expenditure on health systems by African governments.