Rwanda has finally lifted the Covid-19 curfew exactly a year after the country rolled out an aggressive vaccination effort against the virus and nearly two years after limitations of movement were first introduced.
The decision was taken during Friday’s cabinet meeting, which also ordered further easing of a host of other restrictions, including reopening of all of land borders on Monday, March 7, and a return to full capacity for workplaces and other venues.
The development came a day after the country announced it had reached a new Covid-19 vaccine milestone, a 60 per cent full vaccination coverage.
The move came after an extended period of falling infection rates, with the Ministry of Health saying Friday it had recorded only 5 positive cases out of 14,288 tests over the previous 24 hours. That means a positivity rate of 0.03 per cent, far below the threshold of 5 per cent – which had been exceeded the last time the government imposed stay-at-home orders last year.
These gains in the battle against the deadly virus put Rwanda in good stead to meet the World Health Organization’s target of inoculating 70 per cent of the country’s population by June this year.
“There is a chance we shall hit the target well ahead of schedule,” the Health sector spokesperson, Julien Mahoro Niyingabira, told The New Times. “But we do not intend to stop at 70 per cent, vaccination will continue because we believe it’s the best way out of this crisis.”
Scientists say that once a country has vaccinated 70 per cent of its population against Covid it achieves ‘herd immunity’, which benefits even the unvaccinated as it significantly limits the virus’ capacity to spread.
Besides the health and economic impact of the pandemic, there have been dire social and psychological consequences, with fears the full extent of these setbacks is still unfolding and might linger for years.
While the pandemic has touched every aspect of society and impacted every citizen and resident of Rwanda, children and women have been disproportionately affected, according to several studies.
“For instance, two out of three community health workers (CHWs) who provide maternal and child care services are women and, in the Covid context, this means that female HCWs face a greater risk of catching the virus more than their male counterparts,” said Mireille Batamuliza, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, citing one perception study. “In most cases, these are the people who interact with sick people before they’re taken to a health facility.”
In addition, she said, these women were now spending less time doing their usual unpaid care work for their families. “Economically, it was found out that female headed households were hit harder than those headed by men.”
It was also established that more women businesses were affected compared to their male counterparts. “This is partly because most women businesses are in the informal sector and can barely cushion shocks,” the PS added.
Batamuliza was referring to the findings of the Covid-19 Rapid Gender Assessment released in February 2021, nearly a year after the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Rwanda.
Jointly commissioned by the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, UN Women and UNFPA, the perception study sought to examine the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to inform gender-responsive solutions.
“Majority of women in the country are employed in informal sectors such as small businesses, tourism (accommodation and food services), and domestic and cross-border retail trade, all of which were immediately and significantly impacted by the pandemic,” the report said. (According to a 2020 Labour Force Survey by the International Labor Organization, women in informal employment in Rwanda were 91.2 per cent in 2019).
The study noted: “It thus stands to reason that a high proportion of rural and urban women (59% and 52% respectively) reported that their businesses had closed down as a result of the pandemic compared to 49% each for rural and urban men.
“The highest incidence of reduced income was reported by urban women (22%) and men (20%) followed by rural women and men (each at approximately 17%).”
Noting that women bore a heavier burden of care and unpaid care work than men, the report said that “following the closure of schools and the increased demand for water and sanitation to meet the high hygiene standards required to reduce the spread of COVID-19, an increased burden of care and unpaid care work was observed, further entrenching the disproportionately large burden borne by women.
Pandemic’s toll on women
“Majority of women (79%) and men (68%) in rural areas and 74% of women and 64% of men in urban areas stated that women are largely responsible for food and meal preparation, home cleaning, shopping for the household, supporting children for home schooling and training, and caring for children.”
Furthermore, the study found that only 26% of women were aware of the government’s economic recovery plan compared to 52% of men.
According to another report commissioned by the Private Sector Federation’s Chamber of Women Entrepreneurs, the main challenges facing women entrepreneurs include reduced flow of customers (identified by 90.6% of respondents), increasing prices (64.8%), customers’ reduced purchasing power (63.2%), and lack of access to supplies (57.6%).
Trade, hospitality and manufacturing were the most affected sectors in regards to micro, small and media enterprises run by women, the ‘Rapid Assessment on Challenges and Opportunities for Women Entrepreneurs in the Post- COVID-19 Economic Recovery’, published in January 2022, shows.
Within the first year of COVID-19 outbreak, 35% of women-led SMES in Rwanda suffered a decline in sales and revenue, 34% faced logistics problems (transport, distribution and communication), 24% were unable to pay monthly salaries, while 5% faced cancellation of orders, the assessment adds. “Among women-led SMEs in Rwanda, 29% of enterprises suffered loss in perishable products at the onset of the pandemic. A further 23% were left with unusable raw materials when their businesses closed during lockdown.”
Respondents proposed a raft of measures to help accelerate recovery, including capacity building, clearer guidelines on loans, waiver of tax penalties, promotion of a savings culture, and networking opportunities for experience sharing.
Globally, while all members of households – children, women and men – have been severely affected by Covid, children have borne the biggest brunt of the pandemic, both in the short- and long-term.
While fewer children and young people have succumbed to the virus compared to adults, many have lost their loved ones with lasting socioeconomic and psychological implications.
‘Severe learning losses’
Children in Rwanda and around the world are also grappling with unprecedented learning losses due to extended school closures, with a recent global report indicating that “the global disruption to education caused by the COVD-19 pandemic is without parallel and the effects on learning are severe.”
School closures affected more than 1.6 billion learners, ‘The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery’ report by UNESCO, UNICEF and World Bank, released in December 2021, reads in part.
It showed that “while nearly every country in the world offered remote learning opportunities for students, the quality and reach of such initiatives varied greatly and were at best partial substitutes for in-person learning.”
It warned that millions of children and youth around the world were at risk of never returning to education. In Rwanda, thousands of children have recently dropped out of school, a situation believed to have been exacerbated by last year’s decision by the Ministry of Health to force some 60,000 students to repeattheir Primary six or Senior Three grades.
Introducing a learning recovery programme composed of evidence-based strategies to boost learning can help bring students back up to speed, the three global institutions behind the report said.
Yet, by December 2021, less than 3% of governments’ stimulus packages had been allocated to education, with the share in low- and lower-middle-income countries as little as less than 1%, the report noted.
“This generation of students now risks losing $17 trillion in lifetime earnings in present value as a result of school closures, or the equivalent of 14 percent of today’s global GDP, far more than the $10 trillion estimated in 2020,” it added.
Domestic violence, child labour…
Beyond learning, it also pointed out that progress in other domains had stagnated or reversed. “Schools ordinarily provide critical services that extend beyond learning and offer safe spaces for protection. During school closures, children’s health and safety was jeopardised, with domestic violence and child labour increasing.”
“More than 370 million children globally missed out on school meals during school closures, losing what is for some children the only reliable source of food and daily nutrition.
“The mental health crisis among young people has reached unprecedented levels. Advances in gender equality are threatened, with school closures placing an estimated 10 million more girls at risk of early marriage in the next decade and at increased risk of dropping out of school,” it warned.
Schoolchildren living with disabilities and those from poor households were hit hardest, the global report noted.
To prevent learning losses from accumulating further, UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank advised countries to adopt learning recovery programmes consisting of evidence-based strategies. “… without remedial measures, learning losses may grow even after children return to school, if the curriculum and teaching do not adjust to meet students’ learning needs.”
They called for consolidation of the curriculum, extending instructional time, and “making learning more efficient through targeted instruction, structured pedagogy, small-group tutoring, and self-guided learning programmes.
Governments were also urged to pay greater attention to children’s socioemotional losses. “School closures not only disrupted education, but also affected the delivery of essential services, including school feeding, protection and psychosocial support, impacting the overall wellbeing and mental health of children.”
To address this challenge, there is a need to adequately equip and train teachers in the holistic needs of children.
“Countries have an opportunity to accelerate learning and make schools more efficient, equitable, and resilient by building on investments made and lessons learned during the crisis. Now is the time to shift from crisis to recovery – and beyond recovery, to resilient and transformative education systems that truly deliver learning and wellbeing for all children and youth.”
In Rwanda, an assessment on remote learning during early Covid-19 lockdowns by Save the Children showed that 72% of respondents confirmed their children had experienced stress at levels higher than during pre-pandemic period, with 28% agreeing that their young children displayed signs of stress through extreme crying, acting out, fighting, or refusing to eat.
Another survey backed by Save the Children found that some children had endured greater “physical and humiliating punishments” and were subjected to household chores all day long.
It said some families had stopped employing domestic workers, with children taking over the workload. “When children failed to fulfil the task given appropriately, the physical and humiliation punishment comes in.”
In addition, young girls are believed to have faced increased risk of sexual assault.
In Rwanda, while recorded teenage pregnancies fell below the 20,000-mark in 2020, the number rose again, to over 23,000 last year.
“We are yet to know the full extent of the pandemic on this issue of grave concern,” said Batamuliza of the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion. “We will get a clearer picture as days go by because the impacts of Covid are still unfolding.”
Indeed, UNICEF warned recently that “follow-on consequences of school closures are on the rise.”
“In addition to learning loss, school closures have impacted children’s mental health, reduced their access to a regular source of nutrition, and increased their risk of abuse,” the UN agency said in a statement released on the occasion of the International Day of Education on January 24, 2022.
It added, “a growing body of evidence shows that COVID-19 has caused high rates of anxiety and depression among children and young people, with some studies finding that girls, adolescents and those living in rural areas are most likely to experience these problems.”
Research for this report was done with UNICEF support.
jmunyaneza@newtimesrwanda.com
Follow https://twitter.com/JMunyaneza