Rwandans who live hand to mouth are bearing the brunt of the pandemic due to limited access to sources of income. The most affected are those employed as casual labourers in the construction industry, office cleaners and house helps.

Others are self employed running micro-businesses such as vendors of different items and kiosks. Currently, as many as 16 percent of the population live in extreme poverty, mainly in rural areas while 38.2 percent

of Rwandans live below the poverty line according to the National Institute of Statistics poverty report covering 2016/17.

While the government is aggressively providing food aid and emergency supplies to the most vulnerable during the pandemic, the support is not sustainable.

Now, experts are predicting that the loss of jobs and livelihoods by the poor in the country because of economic contraction caused by Covid-19, will worsen the country’s income inequality, and plunge thousands of new people into poverty.

When the country went into the first lockdown in March last year, the majority of people in the informal sector as well as casual laborers across the country lost their source of incomes.

The subsequent restrictions, lockdowns and logistical glitches reduced their jobs further, as the traders who provided casual jobs spent long periods without working.

For the better part of 2020, only agriculture and construction provided a reprieve for jobs, but these sectors were at last hit by the lockdown and climate change.

“All categories of people have been affected by the pandemic, but the magnitude differs, the poor and vulnerable

faced the brunt of this and their recovery might even take longer”, said Prof Alfred Bizoza, an economics professor at the University of Rwanda and researcher.

He said, “As other high-income earners depended on their savings, casual labourers, motorists and other hand-to

mouth workers were more fragile because they had no savings to fall back to”. Even before the pandemic, the informal sector, especially informal cross border traders had been reeling from border closure due to political misunderstandings between Rwanda and its neighbours.

The pandemic and containment measures hurt informal cross border traders even further.

According to the central bank’s monetary policy and financial stability statement of August 2020, informal cross-border exports and imports dropped by 55.1 per cent and 68.7 percent respectively last year due to effects of Covid-19.

“The informal traders around border areas have suffered for some time, when you look at those near our border with Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania to a certain extent, they’ve been economically hurt,” said Prof Bizoza.

He pointed out that although there are existing social protection policies in place, they will need to be adjusted specially to provide direct support to the people who have lost livelihoods, who are not to recover soon.

“The recovery plan itself will need to be adjusted to first of all focus on areas where the economy can get quick gains.” “If the government has plans of sourcing money for big infrastructure projects, it should do it now and kick off these projects so that people can get jobs,” he noted.

Many casual labourers, who worked in companies located in the special economic zone, have been laid off as markets collapsed and production came to a standstill.

While smallholder farmers who have been earning an income from the export value chains, have also suffered the repo effects of diminished orders from Rwanda and the fall in prices.

Rwanda extended its lockdown in Kigali for another week as efforts to curb the spread of the virus intensify.

The Cabinet noted that the second wave had led to a spike in infection and needed urgent action to change the tides.

With the capital city being in lockdown for close to a month and travels remaining prohibited, a lot is at stake and the brunt of the suppressed jobs will fall on SMES that dealt in what is categorised as non-essential services.