As South Africa responds to a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the crucial lessons that have been learned in the past year must not be forgotten.
The Chair in Sustainable Local (Rural) Livelihoods has been engaging stakeholders and rural communities since the early days of the pandemic to ensure that rural livelihoods remain a key focus of strategic response to the pandemic.
Here is a summary of some of the key lessons and recommendations we have gathered through this process:
- Rural livelihoods have always been fragile, marked by challenges associated with colonialism and apartheid, poor infrastructure, poorly resourced municipalities, and adverse impact of climate change. This has made them highly vulnerable to the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and greatly reduced their resilience and capacity to adapt.
- Therefore, it is important to construct rural livelihoods intervention in terms of ‘building’ livelihoods rather than restoring livelihoods because rural livelihoods were never at an ideal state in the first place.
- The pandemic offered an opportunity to think about the challenges of rural communities in a more comprehensive manner and to take seriously their vulnerabilities and resilience to disasters in planning and intervention.
- There is a need for relevant institutions of higher learning and training to be established in rural areas or on towns accessible to rural communities. This will enable human capital development, equip local communities, especially young people, to protect local resources and maximize them for sustainable livelihoods. It could reduce the exploitation of rural population by industrial and urban areas. It could also strengthen the weak civil society structures for rural areas and improve human resource developments, enabling better response to pandemics and other disasters.
- Policymaking and implementation need to pay greater attention to local wisdom and indigenous knowledge systems of local communities.
- Traditional authorities also need to be more effectively engaged and given the room and resources to participate in the production and implementation of rural policies and interventions. Integrating traditional rulers in local governance processes will also contribute to the reduction of conflicts in local governance. There is considerable evidence that, where they were enabled to do so, traditional rulers played important roles in managing the pandemic so far and in ensuring that government regulations are respected.
- Service delivery challenges in rural communities need to be addressed to reduce the risk of such communities suffering from the adverse impacts of disasters.
- Intergovernmental relations and partnerships have been central to the ability of municipalities to cope with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. These need to be strengthened through joint planning, monitoring and evaluation, and other network governance activities.
- Community radio stations continue to play important roles in the dissemination of information and engaging community members during the pandemic. These should be further strengthened.
- There is also a need for local information centers and telecentres that assist with the dissemination of messages that impact livelihoods.
- The turn to traditional herbs during the initial stages of the pandemic indicates the ability of local communities to exploit locally available resources and to be innovative about their own health and wellbeing. While there was no evidence that these herbs cured COVID-19 disease they helped sustain rural economies, and possibly assisted in boosting health and immunity during a public health crisis. As progress is being made with regards to vaccines and epidemiological research, it is important that the exploration of traditional herbs as a possible health support with prospects of sustainable income generation for qualified herbalists continues. It is also important that researchers collaborate in confirming the efficacy of these remedies and in developing relevant guidelines for the development and utilization of medicinal plants.