Health CS Mutahi Kagwe has called for social protection programmes’ to be adopted to ease the economic challenges majority of Kenyans are facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking at the 23rd African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) seminar, Kagwe said a well thought out social protection programmes will safeguard the economically vulnerable.

The CS noted that such initiatives will ensure positive health outcomes by easing economic shocks, including income losses caused by the government’s measures to contain Covid-19.

The seminar included delegates from across Africa was themed “The Global Covid-19 Health Pandemic and Its Implications for the African Economies”.

Kagwe challenged African governments to re-look some of their policy interventions needed for appropriate coping and recovery means to respond to the crisis amid a surge in the virus.

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“Social protection is an effective way to protect immediate human needs and to cushion economic reversals by protecting productive assets,” Kagwe said.

He added, “If governments have channels in place that they can use to put income into people’s hands when they lose their livelihoods, they can forestall losses that might set economic recovery back years.”

Covid-19 pandemic has shaken economies in Africa, killed businesses, affected livelihoods, while threatening to overturn the region’s development projects and growth projections.