Its findings should illuminate global responses amid conspiracy theories and Trump’s mudslinging
In the world of epidemiology it’s sometimes said that pandemics are lived forwards and understood backwards.
We encounter them head-on, chaotically, trying to fathom the disease in real time even while trying to mitigate its impact. Lessons generally come later as the evidence accumulates.
Continue reading...Medical charity accused of shoring up colonialism and white supremacy in its work
The medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières is institutionally racist and reinforces colonialism and white supremacy in its humanitarian work, according to an internal statement signed by 1,000 current and former members of staff.
The statement accused MSF of failing to acknowledge the extent of racism perpetuated by its policies, hiring practices, workplace culture and “dehumanising” programmes, run by a “privileged white minority” workforce.
Continue reading...Country’s indigenous groups count for 12.8% of population but government response has been criticised as ‘monocultural’
Away from the grey tower blocks and sprawling suburbs of Chile’s capital, Santiago, the country’s indigenous communities are facing new challenges during the pandemic.
The country’s 10 indigenous groups account for 12.8% of the population, scattered from the southernmost tip of Patagonia to the dry plains of the Atacama Desert in the north, and remote Easter Island in the South Pacific.
Continue reading...Revealed: Gangs abandoned trafficked Nigerian women without access to food or funds amid coronavirus pandemic
Thousands of Nigerian women forced into prostitution were left to starve by sex traffickers during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, the Guardian can reveal.
According to the UN’s International Office for Migration (IOM), more than 80% of the tens of thousands of Nigerian women who arrived in Italy from Libya in recent years were victims of highly organised sex trafficking gangs. The women are forced into prostitution to pay off debts of up to €40,000 (£36,000) and controlled through violence and fear of “juju” black magic rituals they are made to undergo before their journey to Europe.
Continue reading...Attacks by Islamist groups and rising ethnic tension in the Mopti region have led to life-threatening disruption to farming practices
A surge in fighting in central Mali has forced hundreds of villagers from farmland they depend on and could leave them without enough food to survive this year, according to a study of satellite imagery by the UN’s World Food Programme.
More than half the number of violent attacks by armed groups against Mali civilians last year were recorded in the Mopti region, largely targeting people who survive on land or livestock.
Continue reading...The department is a world leader in programmes based on gender equality. The government must show this will continue
News that the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are to merge raised many questions about the UK’s commitment to supporting the world’s poorest people. A key question for us is how the new department will support women and girls.
For more than 20 years, UK aid has saved and transformed the lives of women and girls in some of the world’s poorest countries. In the past five years, 10 million women and girls have received humanitarian assistance and more than 6 million girls have been able to access quality education. Upwards of £25m has been invested to prevent violence against women and girls through the government’s What Works programme, and a further £67m committed.
Continue reading...Obadiah Moyo has been charged with criminal abuse of office over the alleged awarding of a $60m contract for Covid-19 supplies
A Zimbabwean health minister charged with corruption in connection with the awarding of a multimillion dollar contract for Covid-19 medical supplies has been fired by the president.
Obadiah Moyo was sacked by Emmerson Mnangagwa this week for inappropriate conduct by a public official.
Continue reading...Starvation looms from Afghanistan to Haiti as coronavirus restrictions wipe out incomes and cut food supplies
Millions of people are being pushed towards hunger by the coronavirus pandemic, which could end up killing more people through lack of food than from the illness itself, Oxfam has warned.
Closed borders, curfews and travel restrictions have disrupted food supplies and incomes in already fragile countries, forcing an extra million people closer to famine in Afghanistan and heightening the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, where two-thirds already live in hunger.
Continue reading...More than 60,000 Nigerians live in Minawao refugee camp in Cameroon after fleeing from Boko Haram. Many have PTSD and other mental health conditions because of what they endured. Here are some of their stories
Continue reading...Anti-trafficking organisations say widespread trust in white outsiders makes children an easy target for abusers from the west
Child protection organisations in Kenya say more needs to be done to protect young people from exploitation by overseas perpetrators, as the country reports a rising number of abuse cases.
The warning follows the arrest of Gregory Dow, a 61-year-old missionary, who last month pleaded guilty in a US court to sexually abusing girls at an orphanage he ran in Kenya.
Continue reading...The peaceful sit-in taking place in Nertiti county is demanding an end to the violence and punishment for the perpetrators
Thousands of people have joined a sit-down protest in front of local authority buildings in Central Darfur demanding action against the armed groups that patrol the region.
A large number of women have joined the first peaceful demonstration – now in its second week – in Nertiti county since war erupted in 2003.
Continue reading...Business is paying a high price for inadequate diets of employees, research shows, with experts calling on companies to provide living wage and subsidised food
Malnutrition among workers in developing countries is costing businesses up to $850bn (£676bn) a year, according to analysis of the hidden impact of poor diet on productivity.
Worst affected were industries relying on manual labour, including mining, agriculture and construction, according to a report [pdf] by Chatham House and the consultancy Vivid Economics. But it found big losses caused by malnutrition in all 13 business sectors studied, including health and education.
Continue reading...Goal to eradicate poverty by 2030 ‘completely off track’, says outgoing special rapporteur, with Covid-19 likely to impoverish millions more
International institutions are losing the fight against global poverty despite “self congratulatory” messages to the contrary, according to the UN’s outgoing special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
In his final report in the post, the Australian academic Philip Alston warns that states and global organisations are “completely off track” to meet the goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030, with more people instead likely to become highly impoverished by new shocks, including coronavirus and existing challenges like the climate crisis.
Continue reading...PM claimed there had been ‘loads’ of consultations over department which faces a £2bn cut this year
Boris Johnson has been accused of misleading parliament over who was consulted before the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee (IDC), said despite the prime minister’s assurances that there had been “massive consultation” ahead of the announcement last month, evidence suggested there had not been.
Continue reading...Isis planted mines across Sinjar and displaced the Yazidi community. Now a group of women are clearing the way for the return of their people
Behind Hana Khider is a large grey wall map, with the minefields her team have been clearing marked in green. “This is the place where Yazidis lived together,” she says. “It’s where I lived in my childhood; I have so many memories here, it’s very important to me.”
The place is Sinjar, or Shingal as Yazidis know it, on Iraq’s north-western border with Syria. Khider, 28, is speaking via video call from her office in the region.
Continue reading...An honest conversation about race has to recognise the marginalisation and exploitation of many aid workers
The global push for racial justice following the death of George Floyd in the US has resulted in a flurry of solidarity statements from within the international aid industry, including the UN.
After a shaky start, where its secretary general, António Guterres, was forced to backtrack on a note to staff that suggested they shouldn’t participate in Black Lives Matter (BLM), UN People of African Descent (Unpad) launched a survey to “allow staff to provide data, including on the extent of perceptions of systemic inequality inside the UN, its manifestations, and the responsiveness of the organisation to reports of incidents of systemic racism”.
Continue reading...Facing the prospect of rotting crops and ruined livelihoods, Indian farmers have embraced virtual marketplaces to sell produce
When the call finally comes, the connection is so poor that Silme Marak can barely catch the words. After running upstairs to the roof of her house for a better signal, the 39-year-old farmer finally hears the first piece of good news to come her way in months: an order for 600 pineapples from a harvest that she had feared might have to be left to rot.
Marak lives in the Tura town of Meghalaya, a hilly place in north-east India whose name translates as “the abode of clouds”. She is among millions of farmers in India – agriculture contributes nearly a seventh of the country’s GDP – in despair at the prospect of seeing their produce rot as the country entered a severe lockdown in the third week of March. According to a Credit Suisse report, vegetable farmers alone have lost upwards of Rs 20,000 crore (£2.5bn).
Continue reading...The recent seizure of the biggest shipment of illegal fins in Hong Kong history shows the taste for shark is still going strong
In the narrow streets of Sai Ying Pun neighbourhood, the centre of Hong Kong’s dried seafood trade, most window displays give pride of place to a particular item: shark fins. Perched on shelves, stuffed in jars and stacked in bags, shark fins are offered in all shapes and sizes. Several shops even include “shark fin” in their name.
Fins are lucrative, fetching as much as HK$6,800 (£715) per catty (604.8g, or about 21oz), and the trade is big business. Hong Kong is the largest shark fin importer in the world, and responsible for about half of the global trade. The fins sold in Sai Ying Pun come from more than 100 countries and 76 different species of sharks and rays, a third of which are endangered.
Continue reading...Nestlé is big in York, but the city is fighting the brand’s decision to make life harder for African cocoa farmers
Here’s a quiz question: how many KitKats are produced in the Nestlé factory in York each year? A hundred million? Keep going. The plant makes a billion of the UK’s bestselling chocolate bars annually. That volume is one reason that the company’s shameful decision to end the brand’s Fairtrade certification will have such a devastating effect on cocoa farmers.
I visited some of the Fairtrade-certified cocoa farms in Ivory Coast last year. Seeing the difference that a measure of financial security can make to some of the poorest villages on earth is a lasting lesson in the mechanics of hope.
Continue reading...Their ambitions for a new life in Colombia shattered, migrants are lining up for the bus journey back to an uncertain future
Rosa Vera, a 40-year-old from a small town in crisis-ridden Venezuela, thought moving to Colombia would give her the chance to find work. Five months ago, she left her family and began the arduous journey to Bogotá, the Colombian capital, to look for a job.
Instead, as coronavirus shut down economic life in the city, Vera and more than 400 Venezuelans had no choice but to camp out for a month, waiting for help to get them home.
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