LINKEDIN IS A PLATFORM where professionals from various fields connect to share experiences and opportunities. Whilst navigating through my LinkedIn feed, I was overwhelmed by a post by a certain lady whom I won’t mention due to ethical considerations. She posted that, “the Ukrainian war has no impact on Africa, but it’s eradicating western influence over the continent”.The latter, I won’t focus on, but I’m invested in the former. It is undebatable to say that “the Ukrainian war has no impact on Africa”, because even someone from the remotest areas of Africa where food is locally grown and costs for other basic needs like water range from free to affordable, can disagree with this assertion. In addition to the economic and health issues caused by Covid-19, the war in Ukraine has stoked global inflation leading to a spike in Medical, transport, and communication costs. This has worsened the already poor standards of living in developing countries. In my analysis and opinion, the impact of the Ukrainian war has mostly affected weak economies especially those in Africa and South Asia like D.R. Congo, Bangladesh, Somalia, Philippines, and Burundi. Pertinently, in Sri Lanka the economic crisis was hastened leading to riots and overthrow of the government. Upon requesting for insights from him, Dr. Joerg Ossenkopp, a doctor in Philosophy from Germany, “the impacts of the Russo-Ukrainian war on global health and economy are ongoing”, “gas and petroleum prices were the main drivers of inflation, but the general feeling of insecurity was an important driver as well”. He further stated that, “The resulting feeling of insecurity and of constantly being on edge has an adverse effect on European mental health and a bit less on it all over the globe. Depression is on the rise, stress-related illnesses as well as anxiety and other mood disorders.” On the verge of hyperinflation Majority of African countries are import dependent thus a surge of foreign commodity prices has had inevitable consequences on Africa’s fragile economy. Global shipping costs as well as a surge in oil prices have yielded spikes in commodity prices. Currency volatility has led to financial instability for most African economies. Nigeria's inflation rate, for instance, increased from 15.5% to 15.75%. We don’t know if our beloved East African economies have the proper amount of resources to make the $1,820 worth gold coin like Zimbabwe. Despite the initiatives African governments have taken to curb the price of oil, which is the heart of global supply chain systems, they have been faced with a hard reality – if you can’t control the production, you can’t control the pricing. Recently, the government of Rwanda increased oil prices from 1359.00 RWF to 1460.00 RWF. Inflation has led to closure of many businesses on the continent which is a gnat in the eyes of the rising entrepreneurs. The biggest issue that arises when responding to inflation through various measures like demonetization and increased taxes is, “how to curb it without hindering economic growth?”. Impact on healthcare Discrepancies in global health systems offset by disruption of healthcare supply chain systems like medical drug supply systems and the soaring prices vendors are incurring seems to be wiping out health milestones previously achieved by Africa’s healthcare bodies and institutions as well as making existing ones obsolete. Mr. Vianney Kagame, a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at Rwanda’s Food Drug Authority (FDA) also expressed issues occurring here in Rwanda. He stressed that the inflation has led to a rise in illegal market for medical drugs and equipment in Africa. This is a critical issue in healthcare since leads to unapproved medical practices like over or under prescription. Such practices lead to fatalities and medical emergencies among the African and global population. He (Mr. Vianney) further said that there has been an “decrease in infrastructural expansion and increase in food shortage leading to malnutrition”. The rise in global food and other commodity prices has affected the quality of life and worsened social health issues through increase in poverty and unemployment among poor families, school dropouts, and prevalence and incidence of endemics and pandemics. The vicious cycle caused by the Russo-Ukrainian war on emerging economies Globalization is on the rise, and it is sapient to understand that an issue in one place, in most cases, easily escalates into a global crisis. COVID-19 and monkey pox are good references. In addition to the number of civilians and troops injured or dying, the Russo-Ukrainian war’s impact spans to infrastructural, financial, and health issues. The war and the inflation that has come with it have exposed another gap in Africa’s economies -- lack of self-reliance. It stretches from vital the vital primary sector including agriculture to quaternary sector including information technologies. Modern warfare, in addition to the enormous number of innocent civilians being killed, has brought about unprecedented issues especially in healthcare. The taking over of Chernobyl, and the threats to use nuclear weapons is raising issues like bioterrorism.
