Megan Gieske is a storyteller and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
With a country-wide unemployment rate of 32.6% and over 2.4 million confirmed cases as of August 2021, COVID-19 has been wreaking havoc on South Africa. And Johannesburg remains the epicenter of the virus’ spread.
In western Johannesburg, however, Queen of Hearts Circle, founded by Mariam Behr, has been stepping up to support community needs during the pandemic, raising awareness and educating the community on COVID-19 safety.
How Queen of Hearts...
AfterShocks: Economics
COVID-19 has exposed fault lines in both rich and poor countries. From failing public healthcare systems to racial inequality, the pandemic has laid bare unjust and inequitable structures that are failing the most vulnerable and marginalised groups. Poverty levels are rising globally. Between 88 million and 115 million more people were pushed into poverty in 2020 because of the pandemic, according to the World Bank.
In South Africa, the pandemic exacerbated inequality levels. This was evident during the protests and...
Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist who is working with the ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks project.
While Western nations are focusing their attention on their post-COVID economic recovery, Kenya is confronting a crisis with far-reaching social and economic consequences: rising poverty levels. Kenya gained an additional 2 million “new poor” as of last November due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Bank’s Kenya Economic Update. “The pandemic is inflicting tragic loss of life and human suffering...
Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist who is working with the ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks project.
EU countries will issue a COVID-19 vaccine certificate that excludes key vaccines distributed through the COVAX facility – which is financed by many of the same countries – placing Africans at a unique disadvantage.
Africans who have expressed concern over the extremely stringent and punitive visa application procedures of EU countries now have to contend with another barrier to their entry to Europe....
COVID-19 has certainly had a negative effect on the African economy but is not responsible for all the economic challenges faced on the continent. Even though Africa’s economy has been affected by the pandemic, the continent has fared well due to the urgent preventative steps taken by individual governments to avoid the advanced spread and effects of COVID-19.
But with the COVID-19 crisis, Africa has experienced an unprecedented economic shock. Despite the efforts made by the governments to support their...
This guest blog was written by ONE Youth Ambassador Veerle Blokhuis.
The coronavirus has brought about a lot of change in the world. The various measures deployed worldwide to combat the pandemic have had a major impact on our daily lives, from many workers losing part, or all, of their income to children no longer being able to go to school. In African countries, however, these impacts are even more severe.
On the continent, lower incomes and less education have led...
On 12 March 2020, Kenya confirmed its first COVID-19 case. Since this ill-fated day, the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected the country and its economy. People are still trying to battle this virus, learn how to cope, and emerge stronger after the pandemic.
The economy, however, has since faced major setbacks in its growth. Kenya is Africa’s third-biggest economy and it has not suffered such a new low in 12 years since the post-election violence experienced in 2008. According to...
Africa saw its first reported case of COVID-19 in Egypt in February 2020, and then soon after the first case in sub-Saharan Africa was confirmed in Nigeria.
Within a few months, the pandemic spread throughout the continent, impacting peoples’ lives and livelihoods drastically, and majorly impacted the continent’s economies.
Here’s a closer look at COVID’s impact and why the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is key to helping African economies recover.
COVID-19’s effects on the economy
African economies suffered greatly from trade...
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...
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...