The Covid-19 pandemic is not only a health crisis, but an economic one, and has already prompted a global recession on a par with the Great Depression. By March 23, according to the United Nations, it was estimated that African countries had already lost $29 billion because of the coronavirus, a figure equal to Uganda’s GDP. This figure will now be substantially larger, with big parts of the continent under lockdown. The IMF is predicting the ‘Great Lockdown Recession’ will be the steepest in almost a century.

For Africa’s developing tech ecosystems, the damage done by the virus is likely to be significant, and felt for some time. Investment in African tech startups has been growing exponentially. The continent broke all its own records in 2019, with 311 startups securing over $490 million worth of funding, according to Disrupt Africa’s ‘African Tech Startups Funding Report’.*