Devastating, as Covid-19 will be to Africa, the continent will survive, recover and rise again. But it is what we do with the rise that will make the difference to the next generation. 1/8

We will have to thoroughly review our health, agriculture, manufacturing, education and social safety net policies, according to the lessons learnt. The disease has laid bare how horribly we have handled agriculture. 2/8

Food should never be an issue in Africa. We own most of the world’s arable land and over half of our population is employed in this sector. Yet Africa still can’t feed its people. 3/8

We have frustrated agriculture by the economics of “tenderpreneurship,” importing items like sugar, maize, wheat and rice and frustrating farmers’ access to inputs. We have equally ignored hardy traditional crops. 4/8

Leaders fear locking down their countries to fight COVID-19 because it could lead to starvation and even upheavals. Yet Africans could easily feed themselves even under a lockdown. 5/8

African homes used to have food, including chickens and eggs, dried and preserved fish, meat, cassava, millet, beans. Nearly every homestead had a vegetable farm. 6/8

Let’s strengthen devolved units and start under them a more self-reliant rural economy with an integrated and reliable food production and storage system. 7/8

Distribution of food in slums would be easier were there to be streets, houses with street numbers and residents on known welfare programmes. Covid-19 recovery must involve restructuring our living spaces. 8/8