Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the poverty rate on the continent (excluding Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia) fell from 59.4 per cent in 1999 to 40.2 per cent in 2018 (World Bank, 2020a), though progress slowed after the 2015 commodity price shock. Yet, with a large share of the population hovering just above the extreme poverty line ($1.90 in purchasing power parity terms a day), the gains are highly vulnerable to adverse shocks.