A roundup of the latest news, stats, and analysis of COVID-19’s impact in Africa. View our data tracker and sign up for our weekly newsletter. This week: a weak G7 summit outcome, a growing global learning crisis, and more.  Gentleman’s agreement: G7 (all male) leaders failed to deliver the ambitious commitments needed to adequately address the converging global crisis of conflict, food insecurity, climate change, and COVID-19 at this year’s G7 summit. Only nine of the summit’s 34 commitments are time bound...
A roundup of the latest news, stats, and analysis of COVID-19’s impact in Africa. View our data tracker and sign up for our weekly newsletter. This week G7 leaders meet in Germany to address the converging crises of COVID-19, climate change, and conflict. Spoiler alert: You can’t deal with one while ignoring the others.  Top news Marshalling plans: G7 leaders have signalled their long-term support to Ukraine, with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressing hope that progress can be made against Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian...
Top news Dire states: The World Food Programme has further limited assistance to South Sudan due to funding shortages after rations were already halved in 2021. The reduction will leave an estimated 1.7 million people facing acute food insecurity without support. A combination of drought, conflict, and increased food prices stemming from Russia’s war in Ukraine has left over 60% of South Sudan’s population facing severe hunger. Running on empty: Somalia’s worst drought in 40 years has killed more than 3 million herd animals in the past year, and pushed 386,400 children to...
Top news Must read from ONE: Did you know solving global hunger could cost half of what we spend on pet food? To understand the impacts, drivers and solutions to the food crisis check out our new data dive. A 5 Point Plan to End the Pandemic: We got fed up waiting for world leaders to come up with a plan to end the pandemic. So we wrote our own. Read it here. Getting worse: The World Bank slashed its economic growth projections and cautioned that things could get...
Top news COVID-19’s poor legacy: The pandemic pushed 55 million people into poverty in 2020. That’s more than the total number of people pushed into poverty in the entire 20 years prior to 2020. In Africa alone, another 58 million people could fall into poverty, with women more likely to be affected.  Future focused: Senegal President Macky Sall called for a united African vision for restructuring the international system at this year’s Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (CoM2022). Conference discussions centred on...
A roundup of the latest news, stats, and analysis of COVID-19’s impact in Africa. View our data tracker and sign up for our weekly newsletter. Today, Thursday, 12 May, Belize, Germany, Indonesia, Senegal, and the US co-host the Second Global COVID-19 Summit. In this special edition, we take stock of where we are in the pandemic. Spoiler alert: The world wants to be done with COVID, but the virus is far from done with us. Top news Vaccination apartheid: The summit takes...
Top news A slow TRIPS: A draft TRIPS proposal for COVID vaccines is (finally) before the WTO, a leisurely 18 months after it was originally proposed. ⏳ Despite being heralded as an agreement between the EU, India, South Africa, and the US, only the EU has indicated support publicly. The proposal will now go to the WTO’s 164 members for consideration. It notably excludes important pandemic-fighting tools like therapeutics and diagnostics. Resolve to save profits: Scientists in Egypt, Ghana, and Uganda are working around patent restrictions...
Whoever wins Kenya’s presidential election in August will have to immediately manage the country’s skyrocketing debt and growing food insecurity. Officials at the Treasury have already sounded the alarm on the huge debt burden in Kenya. Last month, Treasury officials announced that the cost of servicing the national debt has surpassed the government’s recurrent expenditure for the first time in the country’s history. Treasury figures show that Kenya will spend 1.36 trillion Kenya shillings ($11.8 billion) in debt repayments annually starting in...
A roundup of the latest news, stats, and analysis of COVID-19’s impact in Africa. View our data tracker and sign up for our weekly newsletter. This week, we look at progress on a malaria vaccine, the not-so-good records broken at the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings, Africa’s role in a new vision of global finance, and more. Top news Default tip of the iceberg: Hunger and blackouts are the immediate symptoms of global economic fallouts, which will see growth stall at 3.6% in 2022...
Humanitarian organizations and religious leaders are criticizing the controversial deal to relocate migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers from the UK to Rwanda. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said there were “serious ethical questions” about sending refugees and asylum-seekers abroad, while the Office of the United High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the deal violates international law and international refugee conventions because it outsources refugee assistance to a third country.  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on the other hand, defended his government’s policy, saying Rwanda’s...