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 here, and read on for more on COVID’s impact on food security in Africa. But first, what to look for at this week’s G7 meeting. Top news War-time footing: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, new Italian Prime Minister and G20 Chair Mario Draghi, and US President Joe Biden have all said we are at war with...
Nearly 690 million people are undernourished, according to a recent report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and this figure has been rising steadily since 2014. In 2019, close to 750 million were exposed to severe levels of food insecurity. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest rate of malnutrition, affecting 22% of the population, or 239 million people. While food insecurity is a complex problem that requires a range of policy interventions, one way to tackle this...
Megan Gieske is a storyteller and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa. On Steve Biko Street, taxi horns blare and horse carts trot down Gugulethu’s busy main road. But over a high wall, a woman has grown an oasis of green in the highly-developed, urban landscape of Gugulethu, where almost 100,000 share just 6.42km² (or 2.5 miles²) of land. It’s here in Gugulethu where Nomonde Kweza, or “Mama Nomonde,” is reclaiming her agricultural heritage, and teaching her community to support...
Amid growing rates of coronavirus infections, the UN warns of COVID’s impact on refugees and on global food security. But two pieces of good news: the deadliest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has ended, and the world came together to support crucial vaccine efforts. Here are six stories you may have missed this month. DRC’s deadliest Ebola outbreak declared officially over After nearly two years and 2,280 deaths, the second-worst Ebola outbreak in history is over, the World Health...
New OECD projects paint a grim picture for economic growth and recovery in the world’s biggest economies. The projections focus on two scenarios, one in which there is a second outbreak of COVID-19 infections before the end of 2020, with global lockdowns reinstated, and the other where a new wave is avoided. But our Executive Director of Policy David McNair asked a different question: how will the aftershocks of COVID-19 affect the world’s poorest countries? https://twitter.com/David_McNair/status/1271393245365522434 Government measures around the world have...
Before COVID-19, 135 million were experiencing hunger so severe that it threatened their lives and livelihoods. Now with COVID-19, that number could double by the end of 2020. Pandemics and hunger crises go hand in hand. COVID-19 is no different. The economic impact of the pandemic translates into poverty as millions of people’s sources of income fall due to job losses. Remittances to low-and middle-income countries are expected to fall by 20% in 2020, more than double international aid to...
The 2020 Gates Letter, marking the 20th anniversary of the Gates Foundation, dropped this week. Each year, the Gates annual letter makes an argument for what, why, and how we should invest to make the most meaningful impact on the world. It paints a portrait of where the world has been, where it currently is, and where it can go with the right action. This year, the letter takes on the theme of “swinging for the fences,” which is advice...
We can’t end extreme poverty without making sure people can live healthy lives. Ensuring everyone can access the nutrient-rich foods they need is one of the most crucial ways to promote health for people everywhere. This is especially true for children. UNICEF’s recent annual State of the World’s Children report takes an in-depth look at malnutrition and how it’s affecting the health and lives of children everywhere. The overall summary is bittersweet: more children and young people are surviving, but...
The word “scary” likely brings to mind creepy creatures, spooky specters, masked murderers, or any number of iconic horror images. But “global development” likely isn’t the first scary thing that enters your mind. While it won’t be the topic of the next big horror movie, some of the challenges facing development can be truly horrifying. From extreme poverty, to gender equality, to corruption, these issues affect millions of people worldwide. Even the most vicious, havoc-wreaking creature of the night wouldn’t...
This story was originally reported by Kagondu Njagi and edited by Robert Carmichael for the Thomson Reuters Foundation. For the women of Tuluroba village’s self-help group, the goal was simple: use their combined savings to buy cattle, fatten them and sell them to the beef industry for slaughter. But there was a problem. “We had no land to graze the cattle. Nor could we obtain a loan from a bank to buy land, because as women we do not own title deeds,”...