The Eastern Africa region's labour market has been the worst hit on the continent from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as an estimated 38 million jobs lost.
"When the COVID-19 pandemic sent the global economy into a recession, the East Africa region was not spared," according to a new report published on Wednesday by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), entitled Economic and Social Impacts of COVID-19 in Eastern Africa.
Presenting the report during the ongoing 24 meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Senior Officials and Experts, Mama Keita, Head of ECA in Eastern Africa, said that the region "will barely grow in 2020 with only four countries on track to experience positive growth in 2020," according to an ECA statement issued on Wednesday.
Figures from the ECA shows that the four East African countries on track to experience positive growth in 2020 include South Sudan with 4.1 per cent GDP growth, followed by Ethiopia and Tanzania with close to two per cent and Kenya with one per cent.
Eastern Africa's growth will slow down considerably to 0.6 per cent in 2020 from 6.6 per cent in 2019, it was noted. Keita also stressed that the COVID-19 pandemic "amplified debt vulnerabilities in the region."
"Before the crisis, there were five countries with debt-to-GDP ratios exceeding 50 percent in 2019 (Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Seychelles). Now, the pandemic has increased the likelihood for this problem to worsen in the region and spread to more countries," she said.