Welcome to Pandemica. It’s a never-ending pandemic purgatory, where COVID-19 never goes away, but continues to mutate and cross borders. It’s the most deadly place on earth, where twice as many people die, the global economy loses an additional US$9.2 trillion, and life as we once knew it does not return for anyone. Sound familiar? We’re all in Pandemica. To escape, we need to act now. Having safe and effective vaccines within a year of the first reported COVID-19 cases...
The World Bank estimates that COVID-19 could push between 143 and 163 million people into extreme poverty around the world in 2021, including nearly 50 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. And the pandemic could end up costing the global economy more than US$22 trillion by 2025 — roughly US$10 billion a day — compared to pre-pandemic projected growth. To combat the pandemic, advanced economies have moved fast to pre-order vaccines and pump trillions of dollars to shore up national economies....
Diana Ayala is a Youth Leader for Global Partnership for Education. She raises awareness of the barriers to education and aims to increase the ambition of leaders for financing education and development. More than a year after the first announcement of the COVID-19 pandemic by the WHO, the announcement of COVID-19 vaccines has brought hope that millions of lives can be saved and this virus that has taken the lives of more than 2 million people around the world can...
As the prime minister announces the UK’s long-awaited integrated foreign policy review today, we look at how we can make the most from Britain’s greatest export: UK Aid. From cultural domination in music, sport, and film, to our world-leading science and research institutions, Britain’s influence is truly global. The Premier League is broadcast in 188 countries. The BBC World Service, which is partly funded by UK aid, reached 426 million people weekly in 42 languages in 2019. The UK was the...
A roundup of the latest news, stats, and analysis of COVID-19’s impact in Africa. Read on for what’s on the menu at the UN Security Council, how young Nigerians are tracking COVID spending, and the pandemic’s impact on child marriage. But first, what did Joe Biden ever do for Africa? Top news 100,000 African health workers: have been infected with COVID as of this week, citing a lack of PPE and over-work. A year into the pandemic, cases on the continent...
Megan Gieske is a storyteller and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa. Just outside Somerset West in Asanda Village, South Africa, Rachel Kolisi and a woman named Grace stand side by side in a three-room home unpacking boxes from the Kolisi Foundation. The two represent women who won’t back down — unrelenting and unfailingly humble. Together, they unpack boxes filled with blankets, toiletries, and clothing from the foundation for a woman fleeing gender-based violence, who will be staying in Grace’s...
March 2021 marked the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization officially declaring COVID-19 a pandemic and of pandemic-related restrictions for many places in the world. To mark the moment, we asked our supporters what ending COVID-19 looks like to them. Almost 3,000 responses later, we learned that our supporters had a lot to say, so we decided to share it with the world. Here’s how it went. Campaign origins At the end of 2020, almost a full year since the first...
Ashlegh Pfunye and Iyunoluwa Ademola-Popoola are Youth Leaders for Global Partnership for Education. They raise awareness of the barriers to education and aim to increase the ambition of leaders for financing education and development. It is undeniable that COVID-19 has altered how we live and work. Lives continue to be lost, and hospitals and health workers have been overwhelmed with patients suffering from the virus. Though efforts such as social distancing, wearing of masks, and bans on large gatherings have...
By March 2020, UNESCO reported nearly 3 million students across the world had their education disrupted due to COVID-19 after just 13 countries saw school closures. By April 2020, 194 countries instituted countrywide school closures affecting 91% of enrolled learners. Disruptions to students’ academic years can have extreme consequences. Just three months of missed schooling can result in 1.5 years of learning loss years later. This is the impact COVID-19 is having on school-aged boys and girls across the globe. Unfortunately,...
Having safe and effective vaccines a full year since the first reported cases of COVID-19 is a historic scientific achievement. It has shifted the conversation from “if” we will see an end to the pandemic to “when.” But COVID-19 will not end with just a vaccine. It ends when everyone, everywhere has access to it. If the virus remains unchecked anywhere in the world, it will continue to move across borders, mutate, and drastically impact the global economy. Prioritizing the...