The City of Harare's response to COVID-19: A case for international co-operation and solidarity

Abstract

This article uses the case of the City of Harare to offer insights into how the coronavirus pandemic shaped paradiplomacy in Zimbabwe. It argues that the City of Harare's international partnerships played a nominal role in helping its response to COVID-19. There is strong evidence that the coronavirus pandemic undermined the significance of international co-operation and solidarity by African subnational governments in pursuit of their development and service delivery mandates. Better leveraging of the City of Harare's international partnerships had the potential to transform many of the challenges it faced in fighting the pandemic. The absence of a robust international dimension in the city's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the main factors that resulted in most of its responses being ineffective. The article concludes that the City of Harare's experience offers important lessons to, among others, African governments on the need to integrate decentralised responses and city-to-city co-operation into their future national disaster and economic response, recovery and resilience strategies.