Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist who is working with the ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks project. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a “shadow pandemic” across the globe: domestic violence cases have risen dramatically since pandemic-induced lockdowns and school closures last year, and women and girls are at greater risk of sexual abuse. According to a UN Women report, reports of domestic violence increased by 30% in France in the first few weeks of the start of the pandemic. In...
Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist who is working with the ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks project. Tanzania’s new president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, is slowly reversing the COVID-19 policies of her predecessor, the late John Magufuli, who infamously declared that the coronavirus had been defeated in the country. He banned the publication of official data and reports on the disease, even as doctors privately reported a rise in the number of patients with COVID symptoms dying in hospitals. Despite being...
Top news COVID isn’t sexist, but the Aftershocks are… Disproportionate: COVID-19 has killed more men than women, but the pandemic has hit women and girls harder. For a start, they are losing their livelihoods faster because they are more likely to work in hard-hit economic sectors such as hospitality, with the UN estimating that women’s employment is 19% more at risk compared to men. Shadow pandemic: Nearly one in three women worldwide have been subjected to physical or sexual violence. Experts warn...
Megan Gieske is a storyteller and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa. A 1-hour drive from Johannesburg, rolling amber hills replace the concrete and skyscrapers of downtown. This is Tarlton. Here Vutlhari Chauke, the woman behind the agricultural business VT Harvest, is fighting against gender stereotypes and disempowerment, and she is bringing other women along with her. Down a long dirt road, 10 greenhouses stand out against the slanting light of the afternoon sun. Women bend over crops of rocket, mint,...
Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist who is working with the ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks project. While Ethiopia is struggling to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, another life-threatening crisis is going largely unnoticed. Famine looms for millions of Ethiopians in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, where an alliance of the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF), Amhara militia, and the Eritrean Defence Force (EDF) has gone to war with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), an armed rebel...
Since the first reported case 40 years ago, HIV/AIDS continues to be a global health crisis, particularly in Africa. The continent is home to about 15.2% of the world’s population, but home to more than two-thirds of total HIV infections in the world — roughly 35 million people. Additionally, 91% of HIV-positive children are in Africa. This high number of infections on the continent is largely attributed to poor access to healthcare, unsafe sexual practices, and high mother-to-child transmission Unfortunately,...
Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist who is working with the ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks project. African governments have been urging rich countries to make COVID-19 vaccines more accessible to their citizens. But some countries on the continent are either returning the vaccines or destroying them, a scenario that indicates significant weaknesses in both the supply and demand side of mass vaccination programmes. Vaccines are going to waste in some African countries because there isn’t sufficient uptake; in...
Top news Tidal wave: COVID-19 cases are surging across Africa. The WHO said that confirmed cases rose by more than 20% since last week, calling for “urgent action” to curb the wave of infections. Uganda has seen an astonishing 2,800% rise in cases since last month, with reports of patients dying while waiting for a hospital bed. Rwanda, Namibia, and South Africa have also reintroduced restrictions in an effort to tackle the crisis. The African CDC Director John Nkenhasong warned...
On 12 March 2020, Kenya confirmed its first COVID-19 case. Since this ill-fated day, the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected the country and its economy. People are still trying to battle this virus, learn how to cope, and emerge stronger after the pandemic.  The economy, however, has since faced major setbacks in its growth. Kenya is Africa’s third-biggest economy and it has not suffered such a new low in 12 years since the post-election violence experienced in 2008. According to...
Africa saw its first reported case of COVID-19 in Egypt in February 2020, and then soon after the first case in sub-Saharan Africa was confirmed in Nigeria. Within a few months, the pandemic spread throughout the continent, impacting peoples’ lives and livelihoods drastically, and majorly impacted the continent’s economies.  Here’s a closer look at COVID’s impact and why the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is key to helping African economies recover.  COVID-19’s effects on the economy African economies suffered greatly from trade...