COVID-19 and its aftershocks are threatening to wipe out decades of hard-earned progress in the fight against extreme poverty. For the first time in more than 20 years, global poverty is on the rise. The World Bank estimated that the number of people living in extreme poverty globally increased by 120 million (including 40 million in Africa) in 2020 due to the pandemic. The outlook is grimmer still with a further increase of up to 40 million is projected...
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Turning point: This week’s G7 summit needs to be a “turning point” in the race to vaccinate the world against COVID-19. Joe Biden played the first card as he boarded Air Force 1 on Wednesday, promising to announce a major plan to vaccinate the world (more on that later). At ONE we’re joining 200 world leaders in calling for the G7 to do whatever it takes to beat the virus everywhere, starting with immediately sharing at least 1...
Nearly a year and a half into the crisis, COVID-19 has taken as many as 12.7 million lives and cost the world economy trillions of dollars.
The world is over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, and we’ve seen some progress in global coordination to end it, including the Biden administration’s deal with Pfizer-BioNTech to purchase 500 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to share globally. But we need more global action to end the pandemic for everyone, everywhere.
The fastest way to do so and beat the virus is to ensure that everyone, regardless of where they live, has access to vaccines. Otherwise, the world is at...
COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on Nigeria’s economy. Official statistics show that growth declined by 1.9% in 2020, but the fallouts will be far-reaching. Nigeria has significant underlying challenges that will make recovery difficult. It is the seventh most populous country in the world, with 70% of the population under the age of 30. It also has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Africa — two out of three young Nigerians (aged 15-24) are unemployed. Moreover, over 80...
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Fundamental threat: Low-income economies face a “fundamental threat” of being left behind. The OECD this week predicted low-income countries could take as long as five years to return to pre-pandemic growth levels — compared to 18 months for the US. This echoes IMF analysis and World Bank warnings that decades of progress in the fight against poverty are set to be reversed. G7 finance ministers meet this week, and we know some of their advisers read this email:...
The first case of COVID-19 in Kenya was announced in February 2020. After that, an announcement was made on 15 March 2020 that all learning institutions were to be closed to contain the spread of the virus. Physical learning resumed on 4 January 2021. As a result, the school calendar was considered lost, affecting over 18 million students across the country. In Kenya, many aspects of society and the education sector have been dramatically affected.
Before the pandemic, Africa had...
Aya Chebbi is a Pan-African activist, Chair of Nala Feminist Collective, CEO of Afresist, and served as the first African Union Special Envoy of Youth.
Young people may be less likely to fall severely ill from COVID-19, but in so many other ways, the pandemic has disproportionately impacted their lives.
This is especially true on the African continent. The informal, low-paying labour market, where most young people work, was hit hardest by the pandemic. In Nigeria, 45% of people surveyed said...
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, and read on for the latest on how under-resourced health systems are contributing to high COVID-19 death rates in Africa, the prospects of a global pandemic treaty, and the ONE Community’s Africa Day celebrations.
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Disturbing discrepancy: If you become severely ill with COVID-19 in Africa, you have about a 50-50 chance of surviving. New...
Megan Gieske is a storyteller and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
Disclaimer: This story contains accounts of gender-based violence.
At just 13-years-old, Siyabonga Khusela was confronted with the reality of gender-based violence (GBV).
After a fight with Siyabonga’s step-father, Siyabonga’s pregnant mother arrived at the hospital to deliver her baby. With high blood pressure and other injuries, “she passed on,” Siyabonga said. “The least that the doctors could do was to protect my baby brother.” He was just 13-years-old when he...