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African Marshall Plan: President Emmanuel Macron agreed to share 20% of France’s IMF-allocated emergency funds, Special Drawing Rights. This is a good move. But it risks setting a low bar for the remaining G7 countries — which will receive $282.8 billion SDRs even though they don’t need them. (In fact, some G7 countries may have economic rebounds so promising that the US will see its fastest growth rate since 1894.) Last week, African leaders continued calls for rich...
Anne Paisley
Anne Paisley is ONE's Associate Editorial Director. Prior to joining ONE in 2019, she worked at Devex and the Center for American Progress. She holds an MA in International Policy from Georgetown University and a BA in International Affairs and Economics from George Washington University, both with honors.
In July, Kenyans were dismayed to learn that a cash transfer programme intended to help low-income people deal with COVID-19’s economic impact did not actually benefit those recepients, due to corruption and other irregularities. A study by Human Rights Watch found that officials in charge of disbursing the funds frequently ignored eligibility criteria for beneficiaries, and in some cases, directed the funds to relatives or friends.
Moreover, not all those who were enrolled in the programme received the cash. Many...
COVID-19 has shown the fault lines in healthcare systems around the world, particularly in fragile states where access to public health services has been disrupted or is extremely limited. In Somalia – which has experienced decades of conflict and political instability since the collapse of the state in 1991 – the lack of a robust health system has impacted the country’s ability to deal with the pandemic.
Amnesty International found that only one hospital in the entire country – the...
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Nuclear threat: As leaders and diplomats gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, French fury over a cancelled order for submarines risked undermining global cooperation on a real crisis: COVID-19, which has killed 60,000 people in the past week. Thankfully, sense (mostly) prevailed as President Joe Biden garnered support for a first-of-its kind goal to end the pandemic everywhere: vaccinate 70% of the world’s population in every country by September 2022, alongside important targets on...
The global response to COVID-19 is not working. So far this year, despite the development and roll out of effective vaccines, more than twice the number of people have died from COVID-19 than in all 2020. More than 8,000 people died each day in the past week.
A new target to vaccinate 70% of the population in all country income categories by September 2022 could provide the impetus needed to bring the pandemic under control. But as ONE’s latest analysis...
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 Tanzania’s take two, Biden’s efforts to convene a global vaccine summit, and a South African genomics lab that can help close the knowledge gap on Africa-originating variants.
Powder keg: Global food prices were up 33% in August from the year earlier, hitting emerging markets the hardest, and reaching the highest prices...
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Stop Biden time: Intent on building an “arsenal of vaccines for the world,” US President Joe Biden is calling for a global summit to boost vaccine supply. This comes on the back of a $3 billion commitment to vaccine manufacturing and a call for an “Apollo style” fund for pandemic preparedness, both of which are diplomatic leverage to push other leaders on their pledges on dollars and doses. Welcome news after G20 health ministers shared more rhetoric than...
While rich countries are buying and hoarding COVID-19 vaccines, African countries are facing an uphill battle to obtain vaccines. Many African leaders hoped to secure vaccines from COVAX, the vaccine distribution facility for low-income countries that aims to narrow the global vaccine inequity gap. But some of the countries that contributed vaccines to COVAX are now raiding the very facility that they pledged to support. Rich countries like the UK, Canada, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia have been buying...
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Brutal crescendo: Ethiopia’s cases increased by more than 1,800% between July and September — signaling the start of an alarming third wave in a country grappling to contain both the virus and a devastating civil war. Nation-wide, vaccination rates stand at just 2%, but that figure is nearly non-existent in Tigray due to the myriad challenges of administering vaccines in conflict zones and the destruction of at least 70% of the region’s health centers last fall. While the...
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A race against time: Countries that aren’t able to vaccinate at least 60% of their populations by mid-2022 may have GDP losses totalling $2.3 trillion between 2022 and 2025, per the Economist Intelligence Unit. South Africa and Morocco are the only African countries on track to reach this threshold by mid-2022, with the bulk of countries meeting that goal in 2023 and beyond. Consequently, sub-Saharan African nations will likely shoulder a 3% loss relative to the region’s GDP,...