Sparrow Society’s warehouse opens onto a street, south of the rush of downtown Cape Town, overlooking Muizenberg Mountain. It’s just blocks away from the sea. The chattering of sewing machines accompanies the buzz of women working behind the shop, which sells 100% responsibly made, female-farmed coffee and African-inspired home goods and apparel. The afternoon light shines through the front windows, lighting the hands of women cutting, sewing, stitching, and packing. “Just like the sparrow bird of our namesake, women are often...
Top news Stop Biden time: Intent on building an “arsenal of vaccines for the world,” US President Joe Biden is calling for a global summit to boost vaccine supply. This comes on the back of a $3 billion commitment to vaccine manufacturing and a call for an “Apollo style” fund for pandemic preparedness, both of which are diplomatic leverage to push other leaders on their pledges on dollars and doses. Welcome news after G20 health ministers shared more rhetoric than...
While rich countries are buying and hoarding COVID-19 vaccines, African countries are facing an uphill battle to obtain vaccines. Many African leaders hoped to secure vaccines from COVAX, the vaccine distribution facility for low-income countries that aims to narrow the global vaccine inequity gap. But some of the countries that contributed vaccines to COVAX are now raiding the very facility that they pledged to support. Rich countries like the UK, Canada, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia have been buying...
Top news Brutal crescendo: Ethiopia’s cases increased by more than 1,800% between July and September — signaling the start of an alarming third wave in a country grappling to contain both the virus and a devastating civil war. Nation-wide, vaccination rates stand at just 2%, but that figure is nearly non-existent in Tigray due to the myriad challenges of administering vaccines in conflict zones and the destruction of at least 70% of the region’s health centers last fall. While the...
Top news A race against time: Countries that aren’t able to vaccinate at least 60% of their populations by mid-2022 may have GDP losses totalling $2.3 trillion between 2022 and 2025, per the Economist Intelligence Unit. South Africa and Morocco are the only African countries on track to reach this threshold by mid-2022, with the bulk of countries meeting that goal in 2023 and beyond. Consequently, sub-Saharan African nations will likely shoulder a 3% loss relative to the region’s GDP,...
ONE, UNICEF, and the African Union have launched a new campaign on TikTok to counter false information about COVID-19 vaccines. As part of our ONE World campaign, we have been calling for a global response plan to the pandemic, including global vaccine equity. In Africa, vaccine rollouts have been slow to start, with only 2% of Africa’s population fully vaccinated. Part of the issue is supply — wealthy countries are hoarding doses and not doing enough to ensure equitable access...
Top news Shocking symbol: Europe is set to receive millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses produced in South Africa. Up to 10 million Johnson & Johnson shots partially produced by South African manufacturer Aspen Pharmacare are to be exported to Europe in August and September, and millions more were exported in recent months. Meanwhile, South Africa is yet to receive the overwhelming majority of the 31 million J&J doses it ordered from the company, a key reason why only 7% of...
Toni Sittoni is a ONE Champion from Kenya. During last month’s Global Education Summit in London, 11 African presidents made far-reaching promises on financing education through the “Kenyatta Declaration.” Co-hosted by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the summit aimed to marshal the resources for national governments and the international community to address a learning crisis and help millions of children access quality education. African leaders made some key promises to ensure equitable and high-quality education....
Top news Overwhelmed: Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Africa have ticked over 7 million, as the virus continues to rip through the continent’s largely unvaccinated population. In Zimbabwe, record numbers of deaths from the virus have led to widespread delays in burials. Undertakers are struggling to cope with the added pressure, and bereaved family members are waiting days for a burial slot. In Senegal, hospitals are quickly becoming overwhelmed: 90% of calls to the country’s emergency paramedic service are currently...
In May, the Driftwood Club, a popular beach hotel in Malindi, closed its doors to the public, becoming one of the many hotels in the Kenyan seaside to shut down permanently. Earlier this year, Old Man and the Sea, one of the oldest and most iconic fish restaurants in this coastal town, also closed. Tourism is the economic backbone of Kenya’s coastal region. Foreign, mainly Italian, tourists usually start trickling into Malindi in July, at the start of the summer...