Here are some of my thoughts and interventions from this morning’s session hosted by Stanbic.
We need to prepare for a prolonged, unpredictable economic crisis. An economic recovery plan is urgently needed to reduce the long term impacts of this crisis. Focus should be on:
We need to prepare for a prolonged, unpredictable economic crisis. An economic recovery plan is urgently needed to reduce the long term impacts of this crisis. Focus should be on:
*Building resilient communities with a focus in ‘vulnerable to poverty’ + poor group which constitutes about 30% of BW population. Decisive policy action is needed to get these communities through this crisis, with lasting impact.
In the short term measures such as Helicopter money instead of food packages should be considered. Helicopter money will enable wide spread use of cash in the economy other than just for food, this will include recapitalization of the informal sector & SMEs
A similar intervention (or within the band) to wage subsidies being given to tax paying private sector should be considered as Helicopter money. The demise of informal and SMEs will add to the problematic bulking of social welfare program budgets in the long term.
* Accelerate building local productive capacity implementing bold policy actions (inc’ld incentives) to stimulate domestic investment over FDI which is projected to collapse by 30-45% in 2020/21 especially in Africa.need to aggressively act on the existing investor care program.
Restructure guarantee program to to encourage uptake of the program and stimulate investment .This will need to be coupled with facilitation in unlocking regional and continental supply & value chains to allow domestic manufacturing to take off.
Accelerate the retail charter implementation and and other market access tools. Need to strengthen the Local supplier development program by bringing in large economic players to onboard SMEs in their supply chain. #BuyLocal #Supportlocal
Speed up digitilization and transformation plans; focus on improving efficiency and seamless service delivery. The right infrastructure and policy actions can crowd in private sector in the digital/tech sector and deliver on eHealth, Ecommerce, eFinance, edutech etc
Strengthen govt intervention; restructure govt spending and delay some NDP projects and focus on those with high multipliers and economic impact. Borrow domestically and stimulate capital market. ESP needed to offset potential long term effect unf. Means large deficit now
Flexibility and agility key in response to this crises.
We shouldn’t waste a crises! It should be used to stress test some of the bold, transformative policy actions that show our intent towards a new normal of business unusual. #Covid19Response #KenewendoAdvisory
We shouldn’t waste a crises! It should be used to stress test some of the bold, transformative policy actions that show our intent towards a new normal of business unusual. #Covid19Response #KenewendoAdvisory
