On 30th May 2020, a panel discussion was conducted by Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism [GRFDT], on the topic,“The Pandemic in Africa: local responses and global strategies.”
Sheila Bunwaree is a Professor of Sociology and Development Studies at the University of Mauritius since 1993. She worked as a gender and social development consultant for a number of regional and international organizations. She has been a fellow scholar at the African university of South Africa and the visiting faculty at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Impacts of COVID-19
Prof. Sheila Bunwaree stated, “Context is extremely important when discussing the impact of COVID-19. Mauritius being an Island country with no boundaries and the sea by all sides, there has been no inflow and outflow of the migrants. However, it has impacted the livelihood of people more than in the terms of health”. “Mauritius immediately implemented the stringent measures. It conducted tests on people coming from outside at the airport in the month of January itself, so health wise there were little implications. A group of researchers at Oxford declared that Mauritius has a very high stringent index as it quickly responded to the announcement of an outbreak in Wuhan, China ”, added Prof.Bunwaree.
Prof. Sheila Bunwaree pointed out, “Mauritius is an island state dependent on the tourism sector”. Mauritius has no other sources of resources as it is based on the tourism and octroi sector. The first thing done to prevent the virus from entering the country was closing the tourism sector which has hit the livelihood of people.
As a preventive measure in Mauritius, offices were closed down, which means no work and no work meant livelihood was gone, especially in the informal sector- Prof. Sheila Bunwaree
Problems & Fear
Prof. Sheila Bunwaree mentioned that the “Government faced many problems such as tackling the informal sector problem as being a small country Mauritius, it did not have well documented data on it. The Ministry of finance had no exact idea how many informal sector workers it had. Second problem was bringing back the people stranded on foreign land. There are many people working on Cruises and got stuck in different parts of the world. Ministers of External Affairs have delayed the process of bringing back the stranded nationals for unknown reasons.
“The next on the list was food supply. Mauritius is highly dependent on other countries. 80% of food requirements come from imports. COVID-19 created panic that there will be a food shortage due to a disrupted supply chain. Another issue it is facing is the reopening of tourism industry, there is still lot of fear among people that this might invite the second wave”, said Prof. Sheila Bunwaree
Health and Economic Measures
Prof. Sheila pointed out, “The Mauritius government is to be really appreciated for being efficient. From the medical point of view, the government had adopted the stringent measures at the early stage in terms of lockdown, closing down its frontiers, and sanitary curfews were introduced. People were confined for more than 10 weeks at home, no school, no office, and no work. We had only 10 deaths”. In economic terms, wage support schemes, self-employed wage support schemes were announced by the government.”
Due to our good diplomatic ties with China and India, it helped us bring medication and equipment that we were lacking in the early stage of the outbreak- Prof. Sheila Bunwaree.
Prof. Bunwaree concluded by saying that there is a need to formalize the informal sector. In terms of gender, women could not access the support as it needed, so that area is to be worked. COVID-19 has implied that there is excessive need to develop the agriculture sector of Mauritius to make it self-sufficient.
Snehal Mutha, a journalist just doing her little and loves to read books, finds her peace in food. https://twitter.com/SnehalMutha?s=08