Mitigating the Socio-Economic Impacts of COVID-19; Role of Governments in Sub-Saharan Africa, Fiscal and Monetary Policy Perspectives

In this paper, we investigate the role of governments in mitigating the so-cio-economic impacts of COVID-19. We also try to evaluate the fiscal and monetary policy interventions by governments and assess how such policies could be sustained. Taking Ghana as a sample, this study reveals that, the coordinated applications of monetary and fiscal policies are lifesaving, preventing loss of incomes and jobs, protecting bankruptcies in businesses, and finally enhancing economic recovery. We propose a CCCRD Model which could serve as a global strategy for governments in the fight against COVID-19. Back-ing such policies with legislation could help in their sustenance.


Introduction
Regardless of the significant therapeutic breakthroughs over decades, many contagious diseases like malaria, common cold, meningitis, influenza still plague society and present an enormous threat to human life. As some are native to geographically specified regions, others turn into epidemics by affecting a lot of people at the same time, with few spreading beyond such boundaries into becoming pandemics. With the loss of human life being the critical aspect of infectious diseases, their spread can also have significant regional and national economic implications (Delivorias & Scholz, 2020). Prior studies focusing on this aspect of pandemics have found significant effects across economies, thus through globally and Sub-Saharan Africa is more likely to be hit hard. This is a result of more vulnerable and poor populations, inadequate savings to care for financial calamities, limited access to health care, and weaker health systems. The outbreak of COVID-19 is anticipated to lead Sub-Saharan Africa into recession (World Bank, 2020) and world donors are making available emergency funds to fight and mollify its socio-economic impacts.
In the midst of these, several initiatives like fiscal, monetary, and non-monetary policies have been implemented by governments globally to redeem their economies from such repercussions. There have been growing demands that governments will have to help businesses that are losing income and going bankrupt, financial institutions that are suffering knockdown effects, and the economy at large (Hossain & Green, 2012). Despite the restrictions on people and interruption to supply chains, fundamental goods and services must be provided, and incomes and employment should be essentially maintained. Given the above, this study posits to address the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 across Sub-Saharan Africa? Secondly, we evaluate how governments' fiscal and monetary policy interventions can help in mitigating the COVID-19 effects? Due to the uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19, we lastly, assess how such interventions could be sustained as long as the pandemic travels over time.
This will bring into light the commitment of governments in providing and sustaining the basic interventions such as good healthcare systems, set up funds for unforeseen future pandemics, and subsidies for businesses. Using Ghana as a sample, this study addresses the socio-economic impact of COVID-19, on key areas like social life, education, public gathering; indicators like agriculture, hospitality, foreign direct investment, trade, and industry. We also explore and evaluate the fiscal and monetary policy interventions employed by the government of Ghana in mitigating the impact of the pandemic. The paper is arranged in this order: Section 1, considers the introduction, followed by Section 2 which reviews related literature. Then Section 3 presents the methodological approach with Section 4 later discussing the findings and Section 5 with conclusions of the paper.

Epidemiology of COVID-19
Coronaviruses are a part of the Coronaviridae group under the Nidovirales

Socio-Economic Impact of COVID-19
The basic impact of COVID-19 is seen in the health sector with a substantial number of deaths and infected patients. This has overstretched the capability of many hospitals globally in terms of resources and personnel thus alerting governments to provide the necessary support to augment the efforts of the health sector. Regardless of the effect of COVID-19 on the health sector, it has promulgated the ripple effects on almost every aspect of the global economy, thus from industries that extract raw materials (primary sector), through to the ones that transform raw materials into finished products (secondary sector) and finally to the industries that provide services to its consumers (tertiary sector)  (Nicola et al., 2020).

Social Impact of COVID-19
With lockdowns, social distancing, and a ban on public gatherings being implemented globally to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, this has affected the social fabric of society and disrupted the way of life. There have been heightened concerns for both physical and emotional trauma due to these measures as families, friends, and other relatives are unable to meet as usual to share love and care.
Other activities like sports which sort to bring joy and happiness to people have all been postponed due to this pandemic with notable ones like the Euro 2020 tournament, the Australian Formula One Grand Prix, the Tokyo 2020 International Olympic Games. Other examples such as basketball, athletics, rugby, tennis cycling, soccer, boxing, and golf have all been suspended to limit the COVID-19 spread (Uefa, 2020). The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) reported the impact of COVID-19 as being very destructive to older, poor, youth, indigenous, and persons with disabilities. These social groups of people are likely to suffer unfairly from the pandemic and its post-effects, leading to higher levels of inequality, xenophobia, and unemployment globally (United Nations, 2020).

Economic Impact of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic is still plaguing the world and ripping it off economic  Yield falling under 0.5% (Schneider & Domonoske, 2020). From the secondary sectors, the issues have not been different anyway. With workers being asked to stay home and observe social distancing, the transformation of raw material into finished products has also been impacted. This has also disrupted supply chains, causing delays in business operations and increased unemployment. Subsequently, this has limited the flow of goods and services, movement of people, slowing down economies and is gradually leading into global recession. This has led to much higher economic costs leaving unknown, the multiple dynamics of the COVID-19 crisis (Szlezak, Reeves, & Swartz, 2020). Additionally, with several months of lockdowns and social distancing, growth in productivity declines as a result of the limit on the formation of capital and labor output, pushing the economy into bankruptcy.
The tertiary sector which is predominated by industries like hospitality, aviation, education, and entertainment has also been greatly impacted by the COVID-19. France, Greece, and Italy are an example of economies that could be greatly affected and hence will need to adjust their annual forecasts since they depend highly on tourism (Delivorias & Scholz, 2020). COVID-19 has also uncommonly extended challenges to the real economy, capital, and liquidity structure. In the financial system, COVID-19 shocks have duly caused capital market stress, sparking central banks to employ cogent measures to salvage the situation (Szlezak et al., 2020). The transportation sector especially aviation has also been kept in the dark. With most airports been shut down globally and airlines not operational, has immensely disrupted the supply chains as well as travels for tourism or other business-related purposes.
Airports are estimated for over US$ 76 billion loss in revenues in 2020 as compared with their normal business operations in 2019. Subsequently, the revenues of airlines are anticipated to decline by 48% (ICAO, 2020). COVID-19 has also affected the education sector with the closure of schools in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus and has negatively affected the quality of teaching and learning. With the closure of these institutions, entities that hold direct and indirect business ties with them are all being pushed out of business thus creating unemployment. An estimate of about 900 million students has been made to stay home (UNESCO, 2020), as the COVID-19 continues to affect the globe.
Governments and other stakeholders have implemented public health and safety measures to palpably rattle the spread of infection.

Sub-Saharan African in Perspective
With weak health systems and vulnerable populations, the COVID-19 is already making a greater socio-economic impact. For the first time in 25 years, the COVID-19 impact is likely to push Sub-Saharan Africa into a great recession.
The African Union has reported a total of 1,813,065 cases as of 4 th November 2020 with 43,612 deaths and 1,484,042 recoveries (Africa CDC, 2020 This would be a result of a decline in local production, foreign demand as well as supply chain disruptions. Unemployment will also not be spared as about 259 million Africans in the informal urban sector are likely to be affected. Subsequently, SME's that provide about 80% employment in Sub-Saharan Africa are highly susceptible to the COVID-19 and its related effects. With the spread of COVID-19 across the continent, agricultural production is forecasted to shrink from 2.6% to 7% leading to a crisis in food security. These effects promulgate into higher costs of living due to the reportage of approximately 100% upsurge in the prices of some goods and services (ECA, 2020). In the event of mitigating the COVID-19 impact on Sub-Saharan Africa, the world bank has made calls to bilateral creditors including the United States of America and China to hold on with the payment of debts by the poverty-stricken countries temporarily so that such funds can be used to curb the transmission of the virus and alleviate its financial-related impact.
This will lead to sustaining the macroeconomic stability of the region (The World Bank, 2020b). The social impacts can also not be undermined with lockdowns, travel bans, and social distancing being key litigating measures towards the spread. The educational system, family dynamics, entertainment, and sporting activities, social gatherings such as churches, mosques, funerals have all been put on hold temporarily, thus affecting the very fabric that holds the society together.  (John, 2020;King, 2020 1).

Global Interventions
Recently, most governments have hinted at significant programs to provide economic and social respite on both a short-term and long-term basis. In the

Adversities from Government Interventions
Regardless of the government's goal to protect lives and put their economies back into shape, their several fiscal, monetary, and non-monetary interventions have brought some discomfort to the lives of people and disrupting the very fabric that holds the society together. With the ban on public gatherings, lockdowns, social distancing, quarantining, compulsory wearing of nose masks, and closure of public places have been critical. (Singh et al., 2020) report that lockdowns create anxiety and fear across the globe, having long-term mental health and psychosocial denotations especially for adolescents and children. There is a greater impact on the social and emotional development of younger children and adolescents than adults. Additionally, the closures of colleges and schools nationwide negatively impacts more than 91% of the student population worldwide (Lee, 2020), with confinement at homes increasing anxiety and uncertainty which could lead to interruptions in their physical activities, opportunities for socialization, and education (Jiao et al., 2020) which in the end affects human capital development for the society.
With lockdowns in developing countries, the less privileged face acute nutrition deprivation and protection with its prolongment leading to loss of income, exposing children especially to a higher risk of facing abuse and unfavorable economic (Dalton, Rapa, & Stein, 2020 Additionally, lockdowns have placed many businesses out of work causing higher labor market inequalities especially for men and younger workers (Béland, Brodeur, & Wright, 2020). With shutdowns, businesses that provided auxiliary services to keep the society running are negatively affected, disrupting the normal flow of activities across societies. The ban on social activities and public gathering has not only rendered people bored, it has caused so much stress, anxiety, taking away the joy and happiness that people normally enjoy in such at such euphoria's. The social setting of societies are impacted as people now tend to live in isolation devoid of gatherings to share love, spend time with family and friends (United Nations, 2020) with people not able to meet.

Theoretical Perspectives
This study considers these theories as relevant in achieving the research objectives as they serve the basis for our assumptions about the phenomenon by which the underlying results can be achieved.

Monetary Policy
Governments through their respective central banks normally use monetary policies to stimulate and drive economic activities. This is achieved by its ability to encourage individuals, households, and firms to spend and borrow. With the related effects of COVID-19 on the savings and expenditure of households, businesses, and governments, we argue the use of monetary policies to stimulate the economy. With the loss of jobs and inflation as being other forms of the effect of this pandemic due to lockdowns and shutdowns, governments could either increase or decrease the supply of money to influence the rates of inflation and growth. Monetary policies could be initiated to lower the borrowing costs to support businesses from going bankrupt and collapsing due to COVID-19 and also bolster the spending of consumers due to unemployment and lockdowns with lower rates of interest.

Fiscal Policy
Governments' two main ways of implementing fiscal policy are through the changes in tax and expenditure policies. In situations where there are not enough economic activities over a given period, governments could initiate stimulus packages to increase their expenditure or simply inject money into the economy. Against the COVID-19 pandemic, we argue that governments could undertake a variety of fiscal policy initiatives such as giving stimulus packages to businesses to support their operations, payments to the vulnerable and unemployed, tax waivers, and so on.

Decision Theory
Fundamentally resides on the concepts and techniques that support decision-makers in handling complicated decision problems under uncertain future future results provides the basis to make the best decisions to obtain the right results.

Sustainability Theory
With the uncertainties surrounding the development of a vaccine for the COVID-19, governments must be concerned about how long their initiatives could be maintained over a given period as long as the pandemic travels. This theory considers the long-term viability of government interventions and how long they can feasibly travel without being diminished over time. Against this background, governments need to consider how sustained their initiatives could be before implementations.

Study Design
The study's design is purely exploratory as it employed the use of numerous articles, journals, and online reports to observe and understand the COVID-19 pandemic. We also explore the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 to create awareness and also evaluate the mitigation interventions being deployed by governments.

Data Source
The case of Ghana is specifically considered for this study. Secondary data on the

Case Selection
Ghana which is one of the fast-developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa was amongst the earliest countries to record COVID-19 on its shores. Currently, it is also one of the countries with the highest testing, surveillance, and contract tracing capacity. Due to the country's sustained growth and development, the World Bank is providing US$ 100 million in the form of short, medium, and long-term assistance to augment the country's effort to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. This package consists of emergence supports with US$ 35 million to assist the country in the provision of enhanced response systems. This support will offer the Government of Ghana the ability to detect, respond, and prevent the

Socio Impact of COVID-19 on Ghanaians
The and Basic Education Certificate Examinations have both been suspended across participating West African Anglophone countries for which Ghana is a member (Rossiter & Abreh, 2020).
Aside from keeping students and teachers at home, it has created unemployment for persons who provide auxiliary services for the education sector. Regardless of this, governments and other stakeholders have taken measures to sustain teaching and learning through virtual platforms. The ban on social gatherings is making it very unbearable for the day to day personal movement and way of life of people hence disrupting the social order temporarily (Nyabor, 2020).

Agriculture
The impact of COVID-19 on agriculture may not be very stern at the initial stage. This is because agriculture in Ghana does not rely significantly on the importation of transitional products. However, the growth rate could be staggered due to supply chain disruptions, lockdowns, limited access to farm inputs like fertilizers, insecticides, and seeds for planting. Additionally, planting decisions could be negatively affected as crops that could have been propagated within the lockdown period could no longer be done. As the duration of the lockdown continues, there will be a decline in the cultivation of food crops for both local consumption and exports. These contractions could impact the overall economic activities (growth rates of GDP) and higher rates of unemployment as agriculture contributes to about 20% of GDP and employs a larger workforce of the population (Ministry of Business Development, 2017). The estimated GDP growth for the Ghanaian economy will decline to about 2.6% in 2020 from an initial target of 6.8% (Deloitte Ghana, 2020).
With the pandemic being intensified, shocks would be exerted on demand for final foods, a more rapid increase in unemployment levels (Josef Schmidhuber et al., 2020). The intensity of the effects on demand for food will rely on many factors which may include the extent of macroeconomic shock, credit facility access, and the savings available. In worst situations, there could be food shortages, and this will to a larger extent cause inflation in the prices of food products especially rice, vegetables, meat, and other poultry products (Ministry of Finance, 2020).

Hospitality
The hospitality industry has been negatively impacted globally and that of Ghana is no exception. With flight cancellations, border and airport closures (sea, air, and land), social distancing measures, and the ban on public gatherings have badly affected the operations of the hospitality sector. Among these are the hardest hit ones like aviation, hotels, restaurants, tourist, and amusement sites.
The occupancy rates of hotels have declined due to a steep fall in bookings to less than 30%, thus causing some increased rates of unemployment to hotel staff and other units that provide augmented services for them. Some high-profile inter-  , 2020). This could also be a result of the reduction in airport taxes, landing, and airspace charges on passenger safety. Additionally, employees in the aviation industry such as servicing aircraft, air traffic controllers, airport securities, immigration and customs, management of airports, ground handlers, and so on are all at risk of losing their jobs (Ayetey, 2020). The implications of these interventions cannot be undermined as they have created a certain level of ease for individuals, households, and businesses. The coordinated and promptly application of both monetary and fiscal policies has been lifesaving, preventing loss of incomes and jobs, protecting bankruptcies in businesses, and finally enhancing economic recovery. Sustaining the operations of small and medium scale enterprises has been very key in putting the economy back into shape. Additionally, the establishment of the CAP is enormously en-

Conclusion
We recognize the efforts of governments globally in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. The monetary and fiscal policies are already yielding some positive results on individuals, households, businesses, and the economy at large. These have been very evident in supporting the unemployed, preventing businesses from going bankrupt, and putting the economy back into shape once again.
However, these policies are very costly to implement and due to the uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, it has very become crucial as to how long such policies can be sustained as far as this pandemic lag on. From the theoretical views of decision and sustainability theory, we recommend governments and other stakeholders to decide on the appropriate policy that could give the best response and also, is the ability to make sure such policies are maintained over time. Because it is unclear when a vaccine could be ready for global usage or when the pandemic will be over, it is therefore imperative to consider how the fiscal and monetary policies implemented in fighting the COVID-19