Skip to main content

Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on East African economies (Volume 2)


Navigating New Realities
In this new publication, we have delved deeper from the macro-economic insights and government mitigation measures highlighted in our Volume 1 publication released in May 2020. We now highlight the COVID-19 sector heat maps across these countries as well as provide an outlook of the expected performance in 2021.
This year’s publication provides high level insights into the continued impact of COVID-19 in East Africa and dives deeper into sectoral analysis. We have also incorporated feedback from readers and our clients and have included Rwanda in this year’s publication.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken more than 4 million human lives and seen economic stimulus packages across global economies surpass USD 13 trillion, four times more than the response to the 2008 - 2009 financial crisis. Considered the black swan of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged through economies both globally and at an East Africa level, with far reaching effects witnessed across several sectors. The pandemic is now considered part of the new normal, though navigating through this new reality is expected to be bumpy and slow with full recovery and rebound in 2021 still largely uncertain.

We expect East African economic activity to pick up in 2021 with a 3% growth compared with 0.9% in 2020. This will mainly be driven by private consumption and domestic demand. However, the recurrence of lockdowns, slow vaccine roll-out across the region, restriction in movements and budgetary pressures in some of the major economies will have a negative impact.

Please note that we have used available data through 30 June 2021 for the purposes of our analysis in this publication, and we hope that you find it useful as we all attempt to navigate our new realities.
For additional insights and to connect with our Deloitte team, please contact the team below.

Download the full Report