Abstract
Tanzania's President sent a plane to Madagascar in May 2020 to bring a shipment of Covid-Organics, a purported cure and prevention for COVID-19. The herbal remedy was described as a gift to help African countries in need. Drawing on preliminary data in English and Kiswahili from unstructured participant observation, social and legacy media available online and shared through contact channels, and ongoing conversations, we explore the Tanzanian policy response to COVID-19. What can the exemplary case of Covid-Organics in Tanzania help us to understand about South-South humanitarian assistance (SSHA) in times of crisis? We suggest that Covid-Organics has enabled the government to project a link to latent debates about Pan-Africanism and Julius Nyerere's legacy and Madagascar's SSHA has provided an opportunity for a public reflection on Africa's place in the world. For some, the remedy's 'Africanness' is its comparative advantage, even promising a continental renaissance. For others, the lack of scientific evidence or approval by global health authorities like WHO is delegitimizing. These findings suggest that receivers of SSHA make sense of it in both a broad, post-colonial discursive context and in a specific context of local contestation. If the promise of this particular form of aid is its ability to transcend deep divisions between North and South, the case of Covid-Organics suggests that SSHA draws on deep ideologies of Pan-Africanism; is increasingly important in crises that are global; and like other forms of humanitarianism, reflects elite politics and priorities rather than prioritizing the distribution of humanitarian goods and decreasing inequality.
Highlights
On 8 May 2020, the government of Tanzania received a shipment of Covid-Organics, a purported cure and prevention for COVID-19, the illness following infection with SARS-CoV-2 virus
What can the exemplary case of Covid-Organics in Tanzania help us to understand about South-South humanitarian assistance (SSHA) in times of crisis? We suggest that Covid-Organics has enabled the government to project a link to latent debates about Pan-Africanism and Julius Nyerere’s legacy and Madagascar’s SSHA has provided an opportunity for a public reflection on Africa’s place in the world
What are the stakes of the debates around an imported herbal remedy for COVID-19 and how should we understand these in a postcolonial context? What are the effects of this work on the national political discourse and on the international discourse? This paper examines these questions of SSHA in times of crisis
Summary
On 8 May 2020, the government of Tanzania received a shipment of Covid-Organics, a purported cure and prevention for COVID-19, the illness following infection with SARS-CoV-2 virus. Both international and Kiswahili media reported that Madagascar has been giving CovidOrganics as a gift to African countries interested in the medicine.5 The politics of such a gift can be understood as a case of SouthSouth humanitarian assistance (SSHA) and it can help to contextualize the anomalous politics of responding to COVID-19 in Tanzania. This paper examines these questions of SSHA in times of crisis Thereby it furthers our understanding of humanitarian assistance, South-South collaboration, Pan-Africanism and Tanzanian politics. Few scholars acknowledge the historical roots of South-South collaboration, the great variety of actors from the Global South that it involves, and the important role that Southern actors play in humanitarian situations Those who do, include, amongst others, de Renzio & Seifert (2014) who in their mapping of contemporary South-South cooperation include examples of Brazilian and Turkish SSHA alongside more common forms of South-South cooperation from countries like Indonesia and Mexico. To interpret the meaning of the SSHA of which Covid-Organics is exemplary, we examine the public debates through the lens of Pan-Africanism
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