This Socio-economic Impact assessment has been drafted by the United Nations in Ethiopia and reflects collective assessment of the scale, nature and depth of socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 in the country based on available evidence, knowledge and expertise.

The global covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented crisis unlike any since the end of the Second World War II. It is the most powerful signs to date of what happens when uncontrolled expansion of human activity collide with the realities and boundaries of the planet.

The immediate implications of the crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa are already very serious.  Despite the still relatively small caseload, which gives a misleading impression of the scale and depth of the crisis, the sharp deterioration of global conditions and the response measures taken in the region to combat the pandemic have already precipitated a major socio-economic crisis. Ethiopia has not been spared. 

Though Ethiopia faced the onset of the crisis with clearer strengths, the socio-economic impacts are already wide-ranging and serious with the potential to become severe depending on the combination of the pandemic’s trajectory, the effects of counter-measures and underlying and structural factors.

The assessment urges for policy response that puts people and their rights at the center, especially those most impacted and left behind. It calls on Ethiopia to avoid artificial and damaging demarcations, between response and recovery, and between humanitarian, health and socio-economic dimensions of the crisis. Download the assessment