Public health policies beyond the state: A socio-spatial analysis of early responses to Covid-19 in Africa, 2020

Ulf Engel
In the perceptions presented by global media channels as well as in the academic public health debates of today, national perspectives on responses to the Covid-19 pandemic prevail. This situation also holds true for the dynamics unfolding on the African continent. In this paper, a socio-spatial perspective is taken to better understand the dynamics of current transregional responses to the virus in Africa. This perspective is adopted against the backdrop of the spatial turn in the humanities and social sciences while analysing the activities of the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Africa and the African Union’s Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention as well as examining a case study on the transregional coordination efforts undertaken by the government of Ethiopia.