Involve local governments in fight against Covid-19
JONAS MBABAZI> PUBLIC HEALTH
The effects of Covid-19 have massively been debilitating to many countries.
As of Saturday morning, there were more than 2.5 million cases of Covid-19 and more than 500,000 deaths worldwide.
Uganda had registered 55 cases, with no registered death and 20 recovered from the virus.
After registering the first case of coronavirus last month, government announced measures to prevent the spread of the deadly virus, which included ensuring social distancing, frequent hand washing, ban on both public and private transport, 7pm to 6.30am curfew, among others.
In Uganda, local governments are the first line of connection to the communities.
During the coronavirus pandemic, they have been mandated to enforce government guidelines in regards to preventing the spread of the virus. In a statement issued by the Minister of Local Government, Mr Raphael Magyezi, on April 4, council meetings at district level were suspended and local governments were ordered to only operate with essential staff and have others work from home.
The district chairpersons and mayors were designated as core staff in the district and members of Covid-19 taskforces in their respective jurisdictions.
Local governments are at the frontline of citizen engagement, service delivery and management of public space. One significant area of local government action in the context of Covid-19 is to prevent exposure and vulnerability of their jurisdictions. To achieve this, they should be able to disseminate information on prevention, exposure and vulnerability to Covid-19 provided by the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation.
The local governments have free airtime on radio and television stations and thus should be able to use this airtime to regularly disseminate this information in the local languages. They must use these platforms to deal with misinformation.
The local governments have a great challenge to support the Ministry of Health on collecting information of members of their communities that could have returned from “high risk” and other neighbouring countries, to ensure that they are tested or quarantined before returning home.
There should be open communication where anyone with information can be able to reach members of the district taskforce.
The local communities are facing unprecedented challenges and stress during this time and are increasingly looking to local leaders for help and guidance. However, local governments do not have budgets for crisis management, placing additional financial pressure on them as they continue to deliver essential services and support their communities. They thus must use the available resources and (or) locally mobilise others to protect their communities from the pandemic and its devastating effects.
The local governments should be able to engineer and drive citizen-led community responses like mobilising resources, material items from all the stakeholders, including individuals, private sector, civil society, media, churches, among others, to support the activities of the district taskforces, take care of the vulnerable and ensure mobility for critical services such as security and healthcare emergency services.
Mr Mbabazi is a research fellow and project manager for Local Government Councils Scorecard Initiative at ACODE jmbabazi@acode-u.org
Role. Local governments are at the frontline of citizen engagement, service delivery and management of public space. One significant area of local government action in the context of Covid-19 is to prevent exposure and vulnerability of their jurisdictions.
As of Saturday morning, there were more than 2.5 million cases of Covid-19 and more than 500,000 deaths worldwide.
Uganda had registered 55 cases, with no registered death and 20 recovered from the virus.
After registering the first case of coronavirus last month, government announced measures to prevent the spread of the deadly virus, which included ensuring social distancing, frequent hand washing, ban on both public and private transport, 7pm to 6.30am curfew, among others.
In Uganda, local governments are the first line of connection to the communities.
During the coronavirus pandemic, they have been mandated to enforce government guidelines in regards to preventing the spread of the virus. In a statement issued by the Minister of Local Government, Mr Raphael Magyezi, on April 4, council meetings at district level were suspended and local governments were ordered to only operate with essential staff and have others work from home.
The district chairpersons and mayors were designated as core staff in the district and members of Covid-19 taskforces in their respective jurisdictions.
Local governments are at the frontline of citizen engagement, service delivery and management of public space. One significant area of local government action in the context of Covid-19 is to prevent exposure and vulnerability of their jurisdictions. To achieve this, they should be able to disseminate information on prevention, exposure and vulnerability to Covid-19 provided by the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation.
The local governments have free airtime on radio and television stations and thus should be able to use this airtime to regularly disseminate this information in the local languages. They must use these platforms to deal with misinformation.
The local governments have a great challenge to support the Ministry of Health on collecting information of members of their communities that could have returned from “high risk” and other neighbouring countries, to ensure that they are tested or quarantined before returning home.
There should be open communication where anyone with information can be able to reach members of the district taskforce.
The local communities are facing unprecedented challenges and stress during this time and are increasingly looking to local leaders for help and guidance. However, local governments do not have budgets for crisis management, placing additional financial pressure on them as they continue to deliver essential services and support their communities. They thus must use the available resources and (or) locally mobilise others to protect their communities from the pandemic and its devastating effects.
The local governments should be able to engineer and drive citizen-led community responses like mobilising resources, material items from all the stakeholders, including individuals, private sector, civil society, media, churches, among others, to support the activities of the district taskforces, take care of the vulnerable and ensure mobility for critical services such as security and healthcare emergency services.
Mr Mbabazi is a research fellow and project manager for Local Government Councils Scorecard Initiative at ACODE jmbabazi@acode-u.org
Role. Local governments are at the frontline of citizen engagement, service delivery and management of public space. One significant area of local government action in the context of Covid-19 is to prevent exposure and vulnerability of their jurisdictions.