Zimbabwe is facing multiple crises: recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, food shortages and the impacts of climate change. While an economic recovery programme and stimulus package were introduced to combat the pandemic’s impacts, trade unions and business representatives have criticised the lack of transparency on how the package was distributed and whom the stimulus measures benefited. Food security remains a challenge due to droughts and flooding. To address this, the government is working with the World Food Program to provide food to 2.7 million rural people. To mitigate the impact of climate change, Zimbabwe is focusing on climate smart agriculture solutions to strengthen agricultural value chains and markets; enhance early warning and climate-related disaster risk reduction systems; ensure climate resilient infrastructure designs and development; and develop resilient and sustainable water resources management. The country’s revised Nationally Defined Contribution Implementation Plan applies Just Transition principles to evaluate how green and climate policies affect job creation for women and youth, income distribution, skills development and economic growth.

The government of Uganda introduced stimulus packages and measures in response to the multiple crises to address environmental and structural issues and spur green, resilient, and inclusive growth. Agricultural and natural resource resilience have additionally been embraced as post-pandemic recovery measures. The government incentivises farmers and producers to adopt sustainable land management and climate-smart agriculture practices, which have been mainstreamed into national development plans. For example, community conservation initiatives, such as tree planting, have increased access to tree products for household use and income generation for communities.
Furthermore, a new multi-sectoral development strategy coordinating the actions of both state and non-state actors and using the parish as the focal point has been introduced. The Parish Development Model aims to create a socio-economic transformation by moving the 39 per cent of households currently in the subsistence economy into the money economy. It aims to do so by organising them into farmer or community groups and supporting them to set up viable enterprises and improving yields, quality, bulking, processing and marketing

Tanzania’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic was not initially strong. As existing social and health programming was predominantly oriented towards a rural population, it failed to reach the households in the informal urban economy which were most vulnerable to the virus. However, the government has since made significant efforts to ensure that the majority of the population was reached with its’ vaccination efforts. To tackle food insecurity and address vulnerability to unpredictable events, Tanzania has been working with the World Bank. A salary raise for public employees was introduced and the private sector minimum wage was increased in 2022. In addition, the Tanzania Social Action Fund’s Productive Social Safety Net program aims to increase income and consumption, improve the ability to cope with shocks, and enhance and protect the human capital of children among extremely poor populations. Tanzania has agreed a National Climate Change Response Strategy for 2021-2026, which aims to enhance national resilience to the adverse impacts of climate change. In 2022, the president unveiled a plan to invest US$18bn in renewable power generation

The South African government has implemented various programmes to address the ongoing multiple crises. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the government worked closely with trade unions and businesses to address occupational health and safety, provide subsidies compensating workers for lost wages and support businesses in retaining employees. To address the food crisis, the South African government has put in place a basic social security grant enabling nearly half of the population of the country, including 8 million unemployed persons, to buy food. However, by 2025, around half of the population is projected to be struggling from food insecurity and hunger, suggesting more long-term actions will be necessary. A Just Energy Transition Investment Plan is being put in place to enable the country to move from carbon intensive to cleaner forms of energy generation – initial efforts will focus on moving away from coal and supporting impacted coal workers, investments in new energy vehicles and green hydrogen. In October 2023, the National Assembly approved a Climate Change Bill, which if approved by the National Council of Provinces and the President, would legally bind the country to reduce its emissions.

The Nigerian government is responding to the multiple crises of food and energy prices, climate change and the impact of Covid-19, through its macroeconomic policies in the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) and National Development Plan 2021-25 (NDP). Nigeria’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) outlines how the country plans to achieve its climate commitments under the Paris Agreement. Prices for food and fuel remain high. To mitigate the rising cost of living, and in response to trade union demands, the government has been providing wage awards to public sector workers. Tripartite national minimum wage negotiations had not yet reached agreement in June 2024, however. Trade unions report that social dialogue on policies and their implementation is not working effectively. The National Labour Advisory Council (the statutory framework for discussing labour matters) does not meet regularly, and failure to respect agreements reached with workers on several labour matters often leads to strikes

To address the multiple crises, the government of Namibia has decided to intervene in key areas: employment creation, prioritising youth employment and entrepreneurship; expanding social protection coverage; and a national formalisation strategy. Trade unions have been actively involved in the implementation of these initiatives. This follows up on several stimulus and relief measures to directly support individuals, small and medium-sized enterprises and corporations, and safeguard jobs introduced in response to the COVID-19 crisis. At the time, employment retention measures were undertaken through the flexibilisation of labour regulations, oriented to avoid major retrenchments and closures of businesses. Trade unions note that these have not yielded the expected results, as many people have lost their jobs and salaries, and hours of work were cut unilaterally, with workers forced to go on unpaid leave. To combat the climate crisis, in 2021 Namibia pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 91 per cent compared to the business-as-usual scenario. The plan identifies key sectors such as energy, water resources, coastal resources, human settlements and urban planning, agriculture, and forestry, developing targeted strategies for each. In addition, the government foresees increasing the share of renewable energy use. However, the overall reduction is conditional on international financial support, without which the country can only guarantee a 14 per cent reduction

Trade unions were involved in measures to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. These included a tripartite memorandum of understanding with workers and employers, to protect jobs and help retrenched workers back into employment during the recovery. Since coming to office in 2022, the Kenya Kwanza government has introduced new taxes in order to tackle Kenya’s high level of national debt. However, opposition from trade unions and public protests have recently led to some of these proposed taxes being scrapped, to protect Kenyans from the increasing cost of living. Trade unions have not been involved in developing measures to face the food, energy and climate crises, however. They have been advocating for changes in acts of parliament to allow trade union representation on strategic energy and climate boards, for instance, Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) and the National Climate Change Council (NCCC). Dialogue with social partners is focused on SDG 8, primarily through the development and implementation of the Decent Work Country Program under the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection.

The South African government has implemented various programmes to address the ongoing multiple crises. To tackle informalisation, the government, in dialogue with trade unions, plans to improve labour protections for vulnerable and atypical workers, by both strengthening labour legislation and employing more labour inspectors to improve compliance in workplaces. To address the food crisis, the South African government has implemented a basic social security grant, enabling nearly half of the population, including eight million unemployed persons, to buy food. However, around 15 million South Africans are estimated to be suffering from food insecurity and hunger, suggesting more long-term actions are urgently needed. A Just Energy Transition Investment Plan is being implemented to enable the country to move from carbon-intensive to cleaner forms of energy generation. Initial efforts will focus on moving away from coal, supporting affected coal workers, and investing in new energy vehicles and green hydrogen. The country has more than doubled its renewable energy generation since 2019, which stood at 11.9% and 2023. In July 2024, the President signed the Climate Change Bill into law, making it legally binding for the country to further reduce its emissions.

Nigeria is facing a severe cost-of-living crisis. The government’s partial removal of fuel subsidies and the devaluation of the naira which were intended to attract foreign investment, have left many Nigerians unable to afford food or fuel, resulting in mass protests and widespread food insecurity. While the government has acknowledged the need to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and develop renewable energy, it has also suggested that it will increase oil and gas production for domestic consumption and export – a move that risks delaying its energy transition. To mitigate the rising cost of living, and in response to trade union demands, the government has been providing temporary wage awards to public sector workers pending new national minimum wage setting negotiations. However, trade unions report that social dialogue on policies and their implementation is not working effectively. The National Labour Advisory Council – the statutory venue for discussing labour matters – does not meet regularly, and the government’s failure to honour agreements reached with workers on several labour issues often leads to strikes. In a worrying move in June 2024, the government declared a general strike planned by the Nigeria Labour Congress to be illegal.