Practical Wisdom and Resilience Overcoming Downside Risk: Grassroots Voices in Africa Under COVID-19

This book classifies and assesses the real and perceived risks associated with both the Covid-19 pandemic and government responses to it in seven African countries — DR Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe — based on large scale quantitative and qualitative surveys conducted in 2022–2024. It also elucidates the people’s resilience in overcoming the risks within their political, social, and cultural context.

Although research on COVID-19 has been conducted in various fields, particularly in the medical field, the analytical perspective of this book is unique. COVID-19 prevention policies are considered to have seriously increased other risks, such as hunger, other infectious diseases, interruption of education, and various types of human rights violations, including increased conflict, violence against civilians, and political abuse. Therefore, this book argues that COVID-19 prevention policies, as well as the pandemic itself, should be regarded as the downside risk that triggers the deterioration of the other potential risks to vulnerable people.

Depicted here is the account of how trust in government, community, and family, within the existing political, social, and cultural environment, created pandemic politics, as elections during the pandemic instrumentalized and politicized government prevention measures. Economic distress threatened people's lives more than COVID-19 during lockdowns and severe behavioral restrictions, and the spread of misinformation discouraged people from being vaccinated. This book will be useful to policy makers and practitioners in international society who are preparing for the next pandemic based on the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kazuyo Hanai

Project Assistant Professor at the Institute for Future Initiatives, the University of Tokyo, Japan and Representative Director of NPO RITA-Congo. She holds a PhD in International Cooperation Studies from the University of Tokyo. She researches the role of resources in the conflicts in Africa and the responsibility of global society. In particular, her research focuses on the relations between the conflict minerals issue in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the responsibility of Japanese consumer society. Her main publication is Justice of Resource Issue: Responsibility of Consumers on Conflict Minerals Issue in DR Congo (Toshindo, 2016, in Japanese). She has served as president of JSAS since 2023 and the principal investigator for the JSAS Hitachi project.

Rangarirai Gavin Muchetu

Assistant Professor at the College of Intercultural Communication at Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan. He obtained his PhD from Doshisha University, where he studied Japanese agriculture, drawing lessons for Zimbabwean policymakers. Thus, his research focuses on agrarian issues, particularly the interplay between state policy and the socio-economic relations of rural dwellers. His recent publications include After Radical Land Reforms: Restructuring Agricultural Cooperatives in Zimbabwe and Japan (2021, Langa RPCIG) and ‘South-South Cooperation in Agriculture: Impacts of Brazil’s More Food International Program on Post-Land Reform Social Organizations in Zimbabwe (2022, Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy).

Laban Kithinji Kinyua

Research Fellow at the Institute of Asian, African, and Middle Eastern Studies at Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Kinyua holds a PhD in Global Studies, with a research focus on decentralization, rural livelihoods, and African youth engagement with digital platforms. His recent work investigates how digital spaces facilitate political participation and resource mobilization among rural communities. Recent publications include “Digital Spaces and Democratization in Rural Africa: Participation, Mobilization, and Laying Claim to Resources” in the Journal of African Studies (2023) and “Decoding Political Discourse on Digital Platforms in Africa: Rumor Networks Among Rural Populace in Kenya’s 2022 Elections” in ASC-TUFS Working Papers (2023).

Yoichi Mine

Professor at the Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University, Japan, and Executive Director, JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development. His research interests include human security, international development, and African area study. He is the author of Connecting Africa and Asia: Afrasia As a Benign Community (Routledge, 2022) and has edited six books in English, including Migration and Agency: Afro-Asian Encounters (Palgrave, 2018) and Preventing Violent Conflict in Africa: Inequalities, Perceptions and Institutions (Palgrave, 2013). The English version of his book, Oral History of Japan’s Development Cooperation (The University of Tokyo Press, 2023) will be published by Springer in 2025.