With the coronavirus,

: Africa mourns its missing tourists

Arrivals of international travelers fell 57% in the first half of the year.

The crisis in the sector could lead to the destruction of 7 to 17 million jobs in this year 2020.

For six months

Le Monde Afrique, Marcel Diouf has bravely repeated the same sentence to himself.

The Senegalese hotelier refuses to give in to catastrophism, even though his hostel located in Mbodiène, on the Petite-Côte, 100 km south of Dakar, remains desperately empty.

Every morning, the staff opens the eleven rooms, cleans the yard, maintains the swimming pool.

says Mr. Diouf, who admits to struggling more and more. more to pay the wages of its seven employees.

International flights may have resumed in mid-July in Senegal, tourists continue to keep their distance

Le Monde Afrique, scalded by the unpredictable evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic across the planet.

The country is experiencing the same setbacks as its African peers.

From Morocco to South Africa, from Cape Verde to Ethiopia, tourism has experienced a sudden and prolonged halt across the continent.

 While this crisis affects almost all areas of economic activity, the manufacturing sector seems to be less affected than services - particularly tourism and transport - or than raw materials.

The World Bank even estimated in April that the impact of this crisis on added value would be positive in 2020, with a gain of + 5% for production in the manufacturing sector, due to the replacement of imported products by local products. .

It remains to be seen, asks

, whether the African manufacturing sector will show resilience, in the medium term, in the face of a crisis of an unprecedented nature and scale

benefit in part from the replacement of imported products by those from local production.

the

Africa must absolutely have the means to develop its private sector.

If Africa will still remain the first growth zone for the years to come, there is no doubt that we are still far from the economic and social consequences of unprecedented magnitude expected due to the global health crisis.

UNCTAD, the UN agency that accurately monitors these developments, is already anticipating a drop in GDP from 3.2% to less than 1.8% in 2020 in the best of cases.

faced with the weakening of world demand and the decline in industrial production, Africa needs more than ever to mobilize its exceptional capacity for innovation and the very dense network of entrepreneurs. which irrigate the continent, without delay.

Beyond the immediate consequences of the crisis, the real issue for African leaders is that of the future offered to young people aged 18 to 25.

The promotion of public policies to strengthen the participation of the private sector in African economies

An intensive training policy

 increasing private sector investment in specific activities where Africa has competitive advantages - and where structural needs are immense - such as agriculture, infrastructure, energy, water and services.