One of the unintended consequences of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been the closure of virtually every establishment that depends on people gathering in large numbers around a limited space.

Some businesses volunteered and closed early, citing concern for public health. Recently, closing many sorts of businesses, especially bars and nightclubs, has been mandatory. In some parts of the country this ban has been extended to cafes and restaurants.

By all estimates, the pandemic is going to be a temporary problem. But the measures being taken to mitigate its impact and protect our fragile health system from buckling under the weight of patients that would require hospitalisation if there is an outbreak are anything but temporary. For many small businesses, they pose an existential threat.

The same is true of my own situation. Having had the idea to open a creative and cultural centre in the middle of Addis Abeba, we only saw the light of day for a brief period after we opened in the middle of last month. We had to close just a few days later because of the virus. Since we rely on visitors to generate business, we stood no chance in the era of Coronavirus.

Indeed, unlike the pandemic, we always anticipated that it would be difficult to start a business in Ethiopia because of the many layers of bureaucratic barbwire one has to crawl through.

It has been ironic how the government has come to speak highly of, and make symbolic gestures toward, small businesses and innovation, while the reality on the ground is difficult.

Let us also not forget the youth that put their skills and imagination to work to create a better future for themselves and their country only to be lambasted by so many layers of red tape that they are forced to quit. As a result, the government attempts to absorb those it fails to help employ in the private sector with expensive schemes that are of doubtful effectiveness.

Through their creativity, young people have been trying to encourage each other to see the world as borderless. In a belief that people can find commonality with one another in today’s world, these young people saw that it is a time of interconnectivity. It is why the youth have the best weapons to realise socioeconomic progress. But the pandemic has threatened all of this.