Some women at the Madina market have lamented over the economic hardship as a results of the Covid-19 pandemic. According to them, the impact of COVID-19 had greatly affected their output as customer patronage was lesser as compare to before the pandemic.
Others also bemoaned their inability to pay back loans they took to promote their businesses as the pandemic created financial indiscipline among them.
The pandemic, according to them, went a long way to affect their households, as they struggled to take care of their family.
The market women confirmed this during a Town Hall Meeting, organised by BudgIT Ghana in Madina on Monday.
Background
The BudgIT Ghana Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, in collaboration with Open Society Foundation of West Africa (OSIWA), organised a Town Hall Meeting under the theme, “Pre and Post Covid-19 Pandemic, socio-economic resilience strategies; impact and lessons from stakeholders.”
The Foundation seeks to promote citizen engagements with institutional improvements to facilitate societal change.
Speaking to the media at the meeting last Thursday, the Communication Head of BudgIT Ghana, Jennifer Moffatt, stated that the spread of COVID-19 had multiple effects on people’s lives – loss of life, employment and income, worsening of living conditions and loss of work days and hours.
She continued that as a result the Government of Ghana (GoG) announced a complete shutdown of economic activities in view of the pandemic, in the Greater Accra and Kumasi during the peak period of the COVID-19.
“Governments around the world including the Ghanaian government are playing a crucial role in providing lifelines to people and firms to help combat the pandemic and its economic fallout,” she said.
To support the effectiveness of these efforts, Jennifer Moffat indicated that it is imperative to assess the impacts of COVID-19-induced investment backlog on micro, small and medium scale (MSMS) businesses in Ghana.
The meeting, provided stakeholders the opportunity to share experience about their Resiliency Adaptive Strategies during and post-Covid-19 Economic Recovery.
It also brought together about 30 stakeholders especially market women to share new ideas and challenges to fostering greater post COVID coping mechanisms or strategies and community collaboration across different socio-economic activities.
The meeting also generated a Strategic Business level discussion data on lessons into Future socioeconomic preparedness and Response to strengthen business resilience.
