COVID-19 crisis - The African Mirror

Dec

05

2021

Efforts to protect the poor during COVID: how five African countries fared

THE number of people living in poverty around the world is estimated to have increased by half a billion people due to the COVID-19 crisis. The African continent has suffered at least US$100 billion in economic costs in 2020, measured by the reduction in trade revenues and financial flows due to the pandemic. Many studies have been undertaken to evaluate the effects of the pandemic in Africa. But there’s little evidence of what difference tax-and-benefit systems made to poverty before or during the crisis. Two areas of government policy form the tax and benefit system. First, governments support people through…

Jul

27

2021

By The African Mirror

COVID-19 crisis has lead to food crisis, says Italy’s Draghi

WORLD

THE world must ensure access to food supplies as forcefully as it moved to ensure access to vaccines, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said at the opening of the United Nations Food Systems Pre-Summit in Rome. "The health crisis (COVID-19) has lead to a food crisis," he said, citing data showing malnutrition in all its forms has become the leading cause of ill health and death in the world. The U.N.'s first-ever Food Systems Summit will take place in September, with the aim of delivering progress on the body's 2030 sustainable development goals. According to the latest U.N. data, the…

Jun

23

2021

By The African Mirror

‘Lifeline’ tech helps poor rural women get through India’s COVID-19 crisis

WORLD

ROLI SRIVASTAVA and ANURADHA NAGARAJ ANAJANA Lalaji Bise's precious last photograph of her husband is a picture he sent to her on WhatsApp a few days before he died from COVID-19 in a hospital in western India. Bise had to quarantine at home after her husband, a farmer, was hospitalised last month, but she was able to stay in touch with him using a smartphone given to her by a local nonprofit to help her small snack business operate during the pandemic. India's COVID-19 crisis has exposed a wide digital divide, prompting many grassroots groups to focus on connecting poorer…

Jun

12

2021

By The African Mirror

G7 eyes allocating $100 bln from IMF funds to COVID-ravaged nations

WORLD

THE United States and other Group of Seven nations are considering reallocating $100 billion from the International Monetary Fund's war chest to help countries struggling most to cope with the COVID-19 crisis, the White House said. The issue will be on the table when G7 leaders discuss how to help steer the world's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic at a three-day summit in Cornwall, southwestern England, which begins on Friday. "The United States and our G7 partners are actively considering a global effort to multiply the impact of the proposed Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation to the countries most in…

Jun

08

2021

By The African Mirror

COVID-19 crisis makes electricity too costly for millions in Africa, Asia

COVID-19

THE economic toll from the COVID-19 pandemic has left more than 25 million people in Africa and Asia unable to afford electricity, threatening a global goal to provide power to everyone by 2030, international agencies have on Monday. Two-thirds of those affected were in sub-Saharan Africa, deepening disparities in the region's access to electricity, according to an annual global report tracking progress on sustainable energy. Millions struggled to pay for essential electricity services to power lighting, fans, televisions and mobile phones as the COVID-19 crisis hit jobs and incomes in 2020, the report said. This threatens progress in the last…

Jun

02

2021

By The African Mirror

‘Recipe for disaster’: COVID-19 spreads fear in India’s tea estates

WORLD

ANURADHA NAGARAJ WHEN Indian tea plantation worker Bholanath Natto and his wife tested positive for COVID-19 their biggest worry was not their health, but where they would quarantine and how they could get hold of food and drinking water without his wages. As some of the cities worst hit by India's COVID-19 crisis see a lull in new cases, infections are rising among millions of tea pickers - many of whom live in cramped living quarters where measures to curb the virus's spread are difficult to implement. The positive test result and hospital orders to quarantine have been a logistical…

May

04

2021

By The African Mirror

Cricket-IPL indefinitely suspended due to COVID-19 crisis in India

COVID-19

AMLAN CHAKRABORTY THE Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket tournament has been indefinitely suspended due to the COVID-19 crisis in the country, the IPL said on Tuesday. The organising Indian cricket board (BCCI) and the IPL governing council took the decision at an emergency meeting. "These are difficult times, especially in India, and while we have tried to bring in some positivity and cheer, however, it is imperative that the tournament is now suspended and everyone goes back to their families and loved ones in these trying times," the IPL said in a statement. "The BCCI will do everything in its…

Mar

26

2021

By The African Mirror

Biden, soccer star Rapinoe push for ‘Equal Pay’

WORLD

ANDREA SHALAL THE United States must erase the pay gap between women and men to recover fully from the COVID-19 crisis, President Joe Biden has said, flanked by members of the U.S. Women's national soccer team that has made "Equal Pay" its rallying cry. Biden proclaimed yesterday as National Equal Pay Day, marking a yearly event that measures how much longer into a new year U.S. women on average must work to earn what the average man earned the previous year. The average woman in the United States now earns 82 cents for every dollar earned by the average man,…

Feb

12

2021

By The African Mirror

‘Liberia will bounce back from COVID-19 crisis with 3.2% growth’

BUSINESS

ALPHONSO TOWEH LIBERIA is in talks with China over debt relief and expects to return to economic growth this year of 3.2% after an estimated 3% contraction in 2020 due to the coronavirus crisis, Finance Minister Samuel Tweah told Reuters yesterday. Tweah said he had feared the worst when the pandemic struck last year, since the West African nation's economy was already fragile partly due to the winding down of some foreign aid flows after a 2014-16 Ebola outbreak. "We thought the economy would have collapsed, but it did not happen," he said in an interview. "That suggests strong resilience.…

Dec

03

2020

By The African Mirror

African women are leading community responses to COVID-19 crisis

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

NADIA SITAS and ROSE WAMALWA WHETHER you’re an urban resident living in South Africa’s Cape Town or a Maasai tribesperson in rural Kenya, the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted how women are negatively affected by both the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown. But it has also revealed how women are leading many frontline activities - mobilising grassroots relief efforts, as well as carrying out their existing work - both paid and unpaid. While many of the challenges faced by women and other marginalised groups are not new, the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated food insecurity, gender-based violence and precarious livelihood opportunities, imposed…