KIGALI – COVID-19 is not a fair fight, it has no sense of rules of engagement. It’s also dragged everyone into the fight. School going children have holidays they didn’t ask for, would-be graduates have to wait additional months before they can start their careers, businesses have long stopped planning for growth to think of survival and health workers have more patients that they were ready for. Putting up a fight has asked a lot from everyone, the government has had to inject funds to create and run isolation wards all the while foregoing taxes, corporate and individual plans have had to be put on pause indefinitely and millions lie awake at the expense of their mental health. It’s further unfair as it’s the first of its kind we have seen leaving no leverage of experience and with everyone including international partners on the list of victims. Everyone has had to look within themselves and expect less from international partners, an experience that is not new to Rwanda. While everyone stays at home to contain the virus which is necessary, businesses, value chains and livelihoods are at stake. While it’s not a fair fight, it is one that we can’t walk away from. Or afford to lose. We can’t afford to lose in transmissions and social-economic gains the country has built over the past 26 years. Soon, after the lockdown that was extended to 19th April, we will leave our homes and back to our respective trades, after passing by the barbershops and hair saloons of course. Some might have to start over, small businesses, self-employed individuals among others. It will most likely be a busy time; re-calling suspended employment contracts, finding new partners, re-establishing value chains and finding their places within them. The nature of the COVID-19 fight and prospects of fast recovery have it that we will need to look out for each other and leave no one behind. While almost everyone will have lost something, time, money, plans among others, hoarding and keeping more to ourselves won’t deliver recovery as fast as we seek it. It’s by looking out for each other especially SMEs that will bring back to life some of the contracts that lie ineffective, reactivate supply chains and reignite value chains. Acts of looking out for each other will be large and small, paying suppliers on time, extending credit to clients, making payments on time, competitors working together to improve eligibility for opportunities. The spirit shown by Rwandan in the last week is proof that looking out for each other is not a trait Rwandans need a lesson on; community members have been volunteering to ensure that vulnerable community members have a meal, landlords shown leniency to tenants while banks have promised to do the same. When the lockdown lifts, we will be ready. But first, we wait. The views expressed in this article are of the author
