Although COVID-19 is a health issue, the crisis was far more than a health crisis. It was a social and cultural one that was poorly understood and minimally represented in the context of the Global South. The project was an urgent response to a rapidly evolving global pandemic whereby the North was leading — by example and economic pressure — a response to an emergency affecting communities all over the world. The “Whose Crisis?” project aimed to co-curate representations and develop understandings of the social and cultural crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa and expose unseen and misunderstood aspects of this time. The project provided critical insights and informed and contributed to more equitable global responses including those related to health, policy, economics, and education.

Immediate cultural production, critical commentary and public policy were being showcased and circulated globally with substantial affect – this has proved to be the most documented pandemic in history. However, the dominant discourses were generated in the Global North, overwhelmingly by a minority of wealthy and powerful authors, reflecting on a crisis that, while impacting the whole world, was experienced in vastly different ways. This project positioned our Southern partners centrally as agents of change within the volatile environment of the COVID-19 crisis.

The overarching aim was to amplify the voices of under-represented and under-served communities in Africa to contribute to the understanding of Global Health in a pandemic context. It has been achieved through two main objectives:

1. Documenting and communicating the plural and diverse lived experiences of, perspectives on, and responses to, COVID-19 in vulnerable communities in sub-Saharan Africa at a community and household level.
2. Sharing perspectives and experiences in participatory and culturally responsive ways to mobilise Northern and Southern expertise, resources and engagement.

This project has mobilised the rapidly evolving COVID-19 expertise within the Sustainable Futures in Africa (SFA) network (a sub-network of the Sustainable Futures Global), and the capacity of partner communities, to create the SFA COVID-19 Global Voices Hub, that curated, consolidated, acknowledged and catalysed experiences, perspectives and responses to the pandemic. This project has created a platform and a pathway for understanding and exchange for societal, health, economic, government and public stakeholders, to inform responsive action. The implications of ignoring cultural perspectives and practices and missing the opportunities to learn from all, led to further inequity, misdirected policies, misallocated resources, increased dominance of certain viewpoints and increased ignorance of the plurality of our experiences.

We are part of the Sustainable Futures Global (SFG) Network.

We are a Collective working to foster positive and impactful initiatives across all sectors, geographies, disciplines and cultures. We have a no-expert, inclusive and participatory approach. We engage in meaningful exchanges with the communities we work with and co-develop contextualized solutions towards a sustainable and equitable world for all.