- As of July-August 2022, one in four Cabo Verdeans (25%) said a member of their household or family had become ill with or tested positive for COVID-19, while a similar proportion (27%) reported that someone in their household had lost a job, business, or primary source of income due to the pandemic.
- Urban residents were more likely than their rural counterparts to report illness (27% vs. 20%) and income loss (30% vs. 21%).
- Poor citizens were more likely to report income loss than their better-off counterparts, while reports of illness or a positive test were more common among well-off respondents.
- Nine out of 10 Cabo Verdeans (91%) said they had been vaccinated against COVID-19.
- Nearly two-thirds (64%) said they trust the government “a lot” (37%) or “somewhat” (27%) to ensure the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.
- Trust levels were linked to vaccination behaviour: Among those who trust the government “a lot,” 97% reported having received the vaccine.
- Almost nine out of 10 Cabo Verdeans (86%) said the government had managed the response to the pandemic “fairly well” or “very well.”
- Majorities were also satisfied with the government’s efforts to minimise disruptions to children’s education (71%), to ensure that health facilities were adequately resourced (71%), and to provide relief assistance to vulnerable households (66%).
- Almost four in 10 respondents (38%) said their household had received relief assistance from the government, including 57% of those experiencing high lived poverty. A slim majority (54%) said assistance was distributed fairly, although 43% disagreed.
- More than half (52%) of Cabo Verdeans said “a lot” (33%) or “some” (19%) of the resources intended for the pandemic response were lost to corruption.
- Large majorities said a government responding to a public health emergency is justified in postponing an election (70%) and using the police or military to enforce public health mandates (84%). But only 36% would approve of censoring the media.
- Almost three-fourths (73%) of Cabo Verdeans said they think their government is not prepared to deal with future public health emergencies.
- Half (50%) of citizens said the government needs to invest more in such preparations, even if it means fewer resources are available for other health services, but 40% disagreed.
Cabo Verde reported its first case of COVID-19 on 20 March 2020, its Patient 0 being a 62- year-old British citizen who had visited the country. The government’s response was swift and wide-ranging: suspension of incoming flights and docking of ships from high-risk countries, mandatory quarantines for returnees, curfews and restrictions on movement, and the closure of public spaces (Government of Cabo Verde, 2020; OECD, 2025). Cabo Verde was also among the few countries in Africa to exceed the World Health Organization’s vaccination target of 70% of the population, administering 859,940 doses to 72.6% of its population (World Bank, 2022; Doshi et al., 2024; TradingEconomics, 2023).
Despite these countervailing actions, the pandemic greatly impacted Cabo Verde’s health sector and had domino effects on the social and economic sectors. As of December 2025, the government had reported 64,550 COVID-19 cases and 417 deaths (World Health Organization, 2025).
Cabo Verde’s economy contracted by 20.8% in 2020, mainly due to the extended lockdown of the tourism sector, the country’s main source of revenue (OECD, 2025). The unemployment rate increased by 3.2%, severely impacting households, with youth and women being the most affected (United Nations Development Programme, 2022).
This dispatch reports on a special survey module included in the Afrobarometer Round 9 survey in July-August 2022 that explored pandemic-related experiences and perceptions among citizens in Cabo Verde.
Findings confirm the pandemic’s substantial impact on Cabo Verdeans: About one in four reported a COVID-19 case in the household, and just as many lost a major source of income.
But citizens overwhelmingly approved of the government’s response to the pandemic, including majority satisfaction with its provision of assistance to vulnerable households, although a majority perceived some level of corruption in the management of COVID-19 funds.
Despite their favourable assessments of the government’s performance, most Cabo Verdeans saw the government as unprepared to deal with future public health emergencies.
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