AfricaFocus Bulletin
August 3, 2020 Africa/Global: Preventing the Next Pandemic
“COVID-19 is just one example of the rising trend of diseases –
from Ebola to MERS to West Nile and Rift Valley fevers – caused by
viruses that have jumped from animal hosts into the human
population. … The rising trend in zoonotic diseases is driven by
the degradation of our natural environment – through land
degradation, wildlife exploitation, resource extraction, climate
change, and other stresses.” - Press release from UN Environment
Programme (UNEP) and International Livestock Research Institute
(ILRI), Nairobi, July 6, 2020
July 20, 2020 South Africa: Covid-19 Response Failing; How to Do Better
“Covid-19 is a crisis on a crisis – it is a health crisis on top of existing social, economic and political crises in SA. Every faultline is exposed: those with food security, and those who go hungry; those with jobs and the unemployed; those with water and sanitation and those without; those who drive cars and those in crowded public transport; those in well-resourced schools with small classes and those in overcrowded, under-resourced schools; those who use private health care and those who wait in long queues outside under-resourced rural and township clinics.” - Statement by members of the C19 People’s Coalition Health Task Force
July 6, 2020 Africa/Global: Not Pessimism or Optimism but Possibilism
“The evidence—gathered both from our own long experience of working
with African governments and from the work of others—is that there
are in fact cadres of thoughtful, public-spirited policy officials
and even politicians; and furthermore that there is ample demand
from wage workers and the intelligentsia for industrial policies
rooted in evidence rather than abstruse economic theory.” -
Christopher Cramer, John Sender, and Arkebe Oqubay
June 22, 2020 Africa/Global: Fossil Fuel Viability to Decline Sharply
“Falling demand and rising investment risk is likely to slash the
value of oil, gas and coal reserves by nearly two thirds, sending
shock waves through the global economy by hitting companies,
financial markets and countries reliant on exports, finds a new
report from Carbon Tracker. It warns that the fossil fuel industry
is approaching terminal decline because of competition from clean
technologies and tougher government policies to achieve climate
targets and increase energy security. The COVID-19 crisis is now
accelerating this: demand for oil could fall by 9% in 2020
according to the International Energy Agency.”
June 8, 2020 USA/Global: Racial Pandemic and Viral Pandemic
The twin pandemics of racism and coronavirus are colliding, in reality and in metaphor. Anti-racism scholar Ibram X. Kendi writes in the Atlantic of “the racial pandemic within the viral pandemic.” And the meme of “America's two deadly viruses” has gone viral on Twitter. But while one is a literal (and new) virus and the other an endemic condition that has persisted over centuries, the scope of each spans the range from local communities to the entire planet.
More on:
politics&human rights|peace&security|health|economy|ict
AfricaFocus Archive:
by date | by place | by topic
June 8, 2020
Africa/Global: Thinking Post-Covid-19
May 25, 2020
Africa: Remote Learning with African Storybooks
May 12, 2020
USA/Global: Contesting Health and Workers' Rights
April 27, 2020
Africa/Global: Pandemic Mobilization amid High Vulnerability
April 13, 2020
Mozambique: Cumulative Shocks, Local and Global
April 2, 2020
Africa: Covid-19, New Africa-Specific Links
March 26, 2020
Africa/Global: Coronavirus Reflections and Updates
March 16, 2020
Africa/Global: Coronavirus Updates
March 9, 2020
USA/Africa: Transnational Lives in Kentucky
February 24, 2020
USA/Global: National and Global Inequalities Are Intertwined
February 10, 2020
Malawi: Historic Victory for Rule of Law
January 27, 2020
USA/Global: Green New Deal Can and Must Be Global
January 27, 2020
USA/Global: Beyond Eurocentrism and U.S. Exceptionalism
January 13, 2020
Russia/Africa: Upping Its Stake in Multi-Player Field
December 16, 2019
Africa/Global: Editor´s Commentaries, 2019
December 9, 2019
Africa: Continental Unity and Industrialization?
November 25, 2019
USA/Africa: At Home in Maine
November 11, 2019
Tanzania: Human Rights Restrictions Mounting
October 28, 2019
Africa/Global: Untapped Potential for Africa Climate Actions
October 9, 2019
Africa/Global: Targeting Corporate Shell Games
September 18, 2019
Horn of Africa: Interview with Kassahun Checole
September 12, 2019
South Africa: Xenophobia, Deep Roots, Today´s Crisis
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