Dispatch from Brazzaville during coronavirus
First-hand account of how Congo is changing under the shadow of global pandemic and how cash is helping families to cope
My name is Alice. I’m a communications officer and, since last year, I’ve been working for the World Food Programme (WFP) in the Republic of the Congo’s capital, Brazzaville.
Brazzaville is changing. The first case of coronavirus was detected here in March, resulting in lockdown, border closures, a driving ban and other restrictions. Markets were open for only a few days a week to allow for disinfection. WFP has uncovered a sharp surge in food insecurity, with more than a third of families affected in the capital compared with around 10 percent pre-COVID-19.
Over the past five months, my work has changed too. Before, I was sur le terrain or à l’intérieur du pays, as we say in Congo — meaning “in the field, inside the country”.
Lessening the risk
Now field missions are less frequent — not that WFP programmes have stopped. In fact, new ones have started, especially in Brazzaville. But limiting movement lowers the risk of spreading the virus.
The thick traffic had returned when I visited a neighborhood called Château d’eau (“water tower”) a few days ago. By 10 am I was at the meeting point, Edmond’s Store. There I saw three women wearing colorful wax masks and jackets — it’s dry season and quite cold. A fourth woman came.
We are waiting for Destin, a colleague from our partner Caritas, in charge of awareness-raising and the smooth running of the cash programme. In the meantime, I get to know Edmond, the owner of the place. His little shop, wedged between a closed restaurant and a cheap printer, is located near a busy bus stop.
Green taxis and buses of all sizes parade incessantly in a din that sometimes makes it difficult to talk. With pride, Edmond immediately tells me that he has worked with WFP since 2013. His shop was part of the network of traders contacted by WFP for the establishment of a food safety net with the Congolese government.
He tells me that COVID-19 has had an impact on all business activities. Without work, “people found themselves without finance. Purchases have gone down and so it has had an impact on our turnover.” Thankfully, WFP assistance for vulnerable households also means giving traders like Edmond a boost.
Also in the store, Victoire caught my attention. She asked me if I am French and said mischievously that she lived in Paris. Yes, I am French, I lived in Paris and I know the Charonne neighbourhood she told me about. What an unusual start to a conversation with a WFP beneficiary! She told me that at the age of 9, she was sent to France to take care of a cousin’s children. She stayed there for five years and was sent back to Congo to look after her mother, who was ill.
“People don’t have any more money.”
Today, Victoire is 54 years old and has no job. Before, friends and neighbours helped her and her grandchildren cope. But now “it doesn’t work anymore,” she told me, “people don’t have any more money.” WFP assistance is essential to feed herself and her family. With cash transfers, she bought rice but not foufou (cassava flour), which has become too expensive with the health crisis. I left with a culinary detail from her: the advantage of rice is that “it can be eaten alone with oil and onion. Foufou requires a sider.”
Gracia, aged 15, is not interested in cooking but in accounting. As I was almost done, she shyly approached me. Amanda, who is also a beneficiary, needed to make introductions for the girl to gain confidence and express herself. She was in her last year of middle school but her father, who was a gardener and the only member of the family with a job, had died in January. No one was able to pay the school fees of Gracia, who could not pass the final exam but wanted to continue her studies in a technical high school.
“In neighbourhoods, in families, in all places where we live, we see this [violence against women and girls].”
And then she started talking to me about another topic: I came to see WFP’s activities today with colleagues from the United Nations Population Fund. This UN agency has deployed a psychologist, two midwives, a nurse and a social worker during WFP distributions, to raise awareness, detect cases and refer victims of gender-based and sexual violence during the lockdown. A lockdown during which violence increased in families: more than 100 cases were identified by teams in one month and half.
Gracia told me she doesn’t even go out at night, she’s scared. Without hesitation, she continues: “In neighbourhoods, in families, in all places where we live, we see this [violence against women and girls]. Violence is not good.” Seeing a 15-year-old girl having the courage to speak out on this topic, to people she didn’t know two hours earlier, gives me hope.
“Family violence — we know there is some, we cannot ignore it.”
Moreover, Edmond told me earlier that beneficiaries, both women and men, were delighted with these awareness campaigns. This activity, combined with food provision, draws attention to facts known by all but not often talked about in the neighbourhoods of Brazzaville. “Family violence — we know there is some, we cannot ignore it,” he adds.
In the coming weeks, a new wave of cash transfers will take place in two new districts of Brazzaville, Ouenzé and Bacongo. Bacongo is my neighbourhood. Tomorrow, WFP beneficiaries might be my neighbours.
Through WFP’s cash transfers, we can at least provide a safety net, giving more purchasing power to families while at the same time providing support to retailers as well as the local economy — never was this more important than during these times of pandemic.
WFP launched Phase 1 of its COVID-19 response in May 2020, providing assistance through mobile money to 75,000 vulnerable people in the outlying districts of Brazzaville. For the second phase from August to December 2020, the assistance will focus on 35,000 people identified as severely food insecure, who will receive cash, as well as 75,000 children under 5, and pregnant and breastfeeding women, for prevention and treatment of malnutrition.
