Dear Prime Minister Draghi, Finance Minister Franco
cc G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors,
We warmly welcome the “People, Planet, Prosperity” framing of the Italian G20. We call upon the G20 Leaders and Finance Ministers meeting on February 26th to agree the following steps to deliver historic increases in the quality and quantity of financing for a global recovery that is job-rich, resilient, and environmentally, socially and financially sustainable.
Together we must recognize that there are three concurrent crises to crack-...
Aid and Development
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.
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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...
With more than 107 million COVID-19 cases worldwide, more contagious strains evolving at an alarming speed from the UK to Brazil, and recent shortages of vaccines supplies, we are now at a tipping point in the fight against COVID-19.
The only one way out of this pandemic is to get vaccines, tests, and treatments to every corner of the planet. Simply vaccinating European citizens won’t work. If vaccines are not available to everyone, everywhere, more resistant variants could develop and...
This pandemic has been as devastating to lives and livelihoods as any war. And yet the world has failed to mobilize the money, the tools, and the political leadership we would muster if we faced a world-wide conflict.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the pandemic, the impact is stunning: it has claimed almost 2.5 million lives, shattering families and communities, and left huge holes in the lives of many millions more. The virus has infected almost 110 million...
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 a primer on COVAX and what to look for at this week’s G7 meeting. But first, how to avert a lost decade for African development.
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Lost decade: COVID is set to cost the global economy on average $1 billion a day over the next six years, according to the...
COVID-19 is threatening to wipe out decades of economic progress and development gains. Sub-Saharan Africa fell into recession for the first time in 25 years in 2020, with economic growth contracting by 3%, the worst on record.
For many countries, a return to 2019 economic growth levels will not occur until 2022–24. Alarmingly, the pandemic will push up between 88 and 115 million people into extreme poverty — those living under US$1.90 a day — around the globe, reversing the...
The OECD DAC, which tracks official development assistance (ODA) spending, has released the latest global aid figures. Due to a lag in reporting and analysis, these only cover through the end of 2019, but they paint a grim picture for what development assistance looked like in the lead up to the global pandemic.
While overall global aid totalled US$151.7 billion, aid fell far short of commitments, and what’s more, development assistance to Africa and the most vulnerable countries declined.
The top...
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 about which country has reached 1 million cases and Tanzania’s continued pandemic silence. But first, how to prevent a vaccine apartheid.
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Catastrophic moral failure: UNAIDS Director Winnie Byanyima recently called out the emerging ‘“Vaccine Apartheid” as rich countries hoard vaccine supplies. WHO Director General Tedros said “We are...
IT. IS. OVER. After the European Parliament’s final vote held in December, the negotiations around the next European Union’s seven-year budget (or Multiannual Financial Framework, MFF) have finally wrapped up. After not one, not two, but TWO-AND-A-HALF YEARS of campaigning filled with countless EU leaders’ discussions, rounds of negotiations between the European Parliament and Member States, two European Commission proposals, Member State vetoes, and a global pandemic that turned the world we live in on its head…
959 days during...
Fighting a pandemic and its economic aftershocks requires enormous amounts of money. In higher income countries, governments have stepped forward with trillions in economic stimulus packages. But the majority of developing countries do not have the money to cover the full costs of this pandemic.
Suspending debt service payments is one of the fastest, most effective means of freeing up cash in developing country budgets. The Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), a G20 agreement to suspend debt service payments for...