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...
COVID-19
Nearly a year and a half into the crisis, COVID-19 has taken as many as 12.7 million lives and cost the world economy trillions of dollars. It is threatening to push 115 million more people into extreme poverty, with women and girls fairing the worst.
In Africa, the aftershocks of the pandemic are particularly profound. Throughout West Africa, the price of staples is up 40% over a five-year average. At one point, Nigeria was spending 99% of its revenues on...
The world is over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, and we’ve seen some progress in global coordination to end it, including the Biden administration’s deal with Pfizer-BioNTech to purchase 500 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to share globally. But we need more global action to end the pandemic for everyone, everywhere.
The fastest way to do so and beat the virus is to ensure that everyone, regardless of where they live, has access to vaccines. Otherwise, the world is at...
Nezha Ben Taleb and Laura Gobbi, two ONE Youth Ambassadors from Italy, are weighing in on the outcomes of the Global Health Summit and the critical role young people play in shaping future policies, global responses, and the world.
A strong echo of hope and solidarity was launched by the Global Health Summit, hosted in Rome on May 15, under the presidency of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and of the EU Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen. “We need...
We need a global roadmap to vaccinate the world — and we need it now. The scenes emerging from India are a harrowing reminder that unequal distribution of vaccines puts everyone at risk. More contagious forms of the virus are already evolving, increasing the risk of a new mutation that resists current vaccines.
Global access to vaccines is the fastest way to end the pandemic, but if rich countries monopolise supply and only vaccinate themselves, twice as many people could...
Having safe and effective vaccines to fight COVID-19 within a year of the first reported cases is a historic scientific achievement. But as our animated series “Pandemica” has illustrated, unless the world prioritizes fair and equal vaccine distribution, we’re at risk of prolonging the pandemic. What happens in the next six weeks will determine the trajectory of this pandemic for the next six months. This is a critical point in the pandemic, as world leaders can either turn the...
ONE Youth Ambassador Isa van Malenstein from the Netherlands is sharing why the world must come together to fight vaccine nationalism.
“Only together do we get COVID-19 under control.” That phrase, which we hear at every press conference, which pops up every few kilometers on signs above freeways, and is played regularly on the radio, has become too much for us. Yet, it hits the nail on the head: if a small group does not abide by the rules,...
Think back to when you were 10. Imagine if you had not been able to read and understand a simple story at that age. Where do you think you would be today?
Age 10 is the age at which children should be switching from learning to read to reading to learn. This critical milestone sets children up for a lifetime of learning. It increases their ability to earn, innovate, improve their own opportunities, and contribute to their societies, including becoming...
All over the world, lives have been put on hold due to COVID-19, and students have not been spared. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, school closures have interrupted children’s learning since March 2020, when for the first time studies were suspended by order of the President of the Republic. At the beginning of the lockdown, teachers did not know how long it would last. So that studies could continue, pupils were given homework, but the system didn’t work...
Mai Mahiu is a bustling trading centre that never sleeps. It is a long-distance truck stop that sits in the shadow of a massive escarpment at the bottom of the Rift Valley, about an hour west of Nairobi, the Kenyan Capital. Here, tucked between single-story shops selling household consumables, agricultural supplies, and truck spare parts, along a dusty street parallel to the Nairobi – Kampala highway, you’ll find Ubuntu Life Education Centre.
This is where Teresia Njeri Ngugi, mother of...