Jumia Pledges to Support Governments’ Fight Against COVID-19 in Africa

Jumia, Africa’s leading e-Commerce platform has offered the support of its integrated ecosystem which include a marketplace, logistics and online payments to governments in Africa, as part of the global action against the COVID-19.

Juliet Anammah, group head, Institutional Affairs at Jumia said,“We are proud to partner with relevant authorities to help fight against COVID-19 and support our communities which continue to support us.

“E-commerce platforms like ours, with e-payment and last mile delivery capabilities, are uniquely positioned to be part of Africa’s response strategy to this pandemic and we are swiftly taking actions”.

Jumia’s actions to support governments in their fight against COVID-19 include:

• Facilitation of social distancing by enabling consumers to buy online. By offering contactless delivery options, we eliminate physical contact and potentially reduce person to person infection.

• Providing access to affordable basic foods and sanitary essentials on the marketplace platform. By partnering with thousands of vendors, like Reckitt Benckiser, and others, we are able to maintain fair prices and fight against speculation. Jumia has waived the commission on specific sanitary products to help consumers get them at the lowest price and implemented measures to control prices.

• Offering Jumia’s logistics networks to help distribute health pamphlets & key products to where they are needed. Additionally, Jumia provides safe deliveries to consumers everywhere, including remote and rural areas, with Jumia’s integrated logistics network. This is important especially for elderly and sick people at home.

• Sourcing and distribution of face masks. Leveraging our access to supply, in particular through our network of vendors outside Africa, we have donated certified face masks to Health Ministries in Kenya, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Nigeria, Uganda and others, and offered to coordinate the distribution across healthcare facilities and workers, leveraging the company’s last mile distribution.

• Incentives to pay online through JumiaPay, in support of the governments’ bid to reduce the risk of transmission through physical cash. In most countries where JumiaPay operates, we have offered special discounts for all payments done via Jumia Pay to promote cashless transactions.

• Enhancing visibility of key health instructions. Jumia attracts millions of customer visits and searches on its platform. As such, we are collaborating with the Ministries of Health in Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Uganda and South Africa by using our online platform to share important health messages from the Ministries. We are also engaging with the Health Ministries in other countries where Jumia operates to offer the same. We anticipate that as the pandemic evolves, Health authorities may need to address different areas of concerns and a platform like Jumia can amplify the reach of much needed information.