COVID-19 is leaving no country unaffected. For the development community and national policymakers, this creates a clear imperative: Wield whatever tools will be most effective to provide immediate relief and, more importantly, support longer-term adaptation to break the downward spiral. But this is easier said than done in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where economies were already severely constrained before the crisis. Moreover: there will be no one size fits all solution. Different countries in SSA are impacted in different ways.

We’ve developed a COVID-19 policy response framework to assist in thinking through how countries can recover and adapt post-COVID-19. The framework maps how countries will be impacted based on three dimensions:

• The susceptibility of their economy to changes in the global economy – gauged via the current account position
• The fiscal ability to respond to the crisis – represented by the ability of the government to access finance.
• The ability of the domestic economy to bounce back – by looking at the competitiveness of the formal sector, as well as the role of the informal sector in supporting livelihoods.

Mapping economies in SSA across these three dimensions renders four clusters of countries across which to compare the likely implications of the pandemic.

In partnership with ODI, UN – Economic Commission for Africa and Access to Finance Rwanda we’re applying this framework to discuss context-relevant policy options for Africa to adapt – and not just respond – to a post-COVID-19 world. Watch the interactive panel discussion critiqued the cluster framework, consider how the dimensions play out in different country contexts, and debate the corresponding imperatives and choices for adaptation – from the government, industry, development partner and financial sector perspectives.