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President Uhuru Kenyatta leads the charge against Covid-19. He speaks to the nation fromHarambee House, Nairobi, March 14, 2020. Photo-State House

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 6 2020 (IPS) – Covid-19 infections continue to rise, bringing normal life to a virtualstandstill and causing countries to shut themselves off from the rest of the world.

Increasingly, governments are turning to ever more stringent measures including curfews and lockdowns, with police and military being used to enforce those measures.

Perhaps necessary as the velocity of the virus has already infected nearly 1.2 million people and killed nearly 65,000 people worldwide, wreaking havoc to the health systems of the most advanced countries of the world.

Frontline health workers, are succumbing to the virus as they selflessly treat those under their care, upholding the Hippo…

Apr 3 2020 – The Education Cannot Wait Global Fund (ECW) allocates a total of US$15 million in an initial series of emergency grants for the rapid delivery of holistic education services to protect and support vulnerable children and youth hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 16 countries/emergency contexts. These girls and boys are already impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement, natural disasters and protracted crises. An additional series of grants to support the response in other crisis-affected countries will be released shortly and reach partners in-country in the coming days.

“1.5 billion children are out of school. The majority of the 31 million children uprooted from their homes today including over 17 million internally displaced, 12.7 million refugees and 1.1 million asylum seekers are at great risk,” said Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, Chair of Education Ca…

Mandeep Tiwana is chief programmes officer at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. He’s based at CIVICUS’ New York office.

NEW YORK, Apr 21 2020 – In her , ‘A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,’ Mary Ann Glendon tells the beautiful story of how out of the ashes of the Second World War emerged the world’s pre-eminent rights framework. The recognises the inherent dignity of every human being and was born out of the shared horror felt by the international community with war crimes and genocide on an unprecedented scale. It acknowledged that fundamental change was needed to make the world fit for future generations.

Mandeep Tiwana

Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting our lives and livelihoods in wholly unanticipated ways, testing the resilience of our social, economic and political structures. Fun…

Africa is grappling with managing diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis as health systems that are unable to cope with both this and the coronavirus pandemic. Sleeping under a net and taking antimalarial pills helps prevent malaria. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, May 11 2020 (IPS) – Experts across Africa are warning that as hospitals and health facilities focus on COVID-19, less attention is being given to the management of other deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which affect millions more people.

“Today if you have malaria…

Black Lives Matter protest in London May 31. Credit: Tara Carey / Equality Now

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 2 2020 (IPS) – The deadly coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over 372,000 people worldwide, has reinforced the concept of “social distancing” which bars any gathering of over 10 or 20 people – whether at a social event, a wedding, a political rally or even a funeral.

In the US, guidelines laid down by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are loudly clear: “limit face-to-face contact, stay at least 6 feet (about 2 arms’ length) from other people. Do not gather in groups. And stay out of crowded places and avoid mass gatherings.”

But all those warnings have been unceremoniously jettisoned as hundreds and thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in several cities, including in Hongkong, Argentina, Leban…

Left: German Ambassador to Singapore Ulrich Sante and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan at the official opening of the German European School Singapore on Sept 13, 2018. Dr Sante says he will be leaving Singapore with a heavy heart but also a treasure trove of good memories. PHOTO: GERMAN EUROPEAN SCHOOL SINGAPORE

SINGAPORE, Jun 15 2020 – The departing German envoy in Singapore, Ambassador Ulrich Sante, in a recent published article in the Straits Times shared some of his thoughts with the readership including on the impact on the community of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Among other things he has noted that it has implanted in us what in German is called Lebensangst, literally meaning ‘fear of life’ but in a broader sense, the loss of trust in resilience, and coldness. He has impassionedly argued: “We need to regain trust in each other again, to sho…

Jul 13 2020 (IPS) – Europe, like the rest of the world, faces an extended crisis. An element of social distancing—mandatory or voluntary—will be with us for as long as this pandemic persists. This, coupled with continued supply chain disruptions and other problems, is prolonging an already difficult situation. Based on released last month, we now expect real GDP in the EU to contract by 9.3 percent in 2020 and then grow by 5.7 percent in 2021, returning to its 2019 level only in 2022. If an effective treatment or vaccine for COVID 19 is found, the recovery could be faster—but the opposite would hold true if there are large new waves of infection.

Some European countries will face a tougher recovery path than others. Several went into the crisis with entrenched product and labor market rigidities holding back their growth potential. Others depend on indus…

275 World Leaders Letter to G20, IMF, World Bank, Regional Development Banks and Governments

Credit: UNICEF Mali / Dicko

NEW YORK, Aug 18 2020 (IPS) – We write to call for urgent action to address the global education emergency triggered by COVID-19. With over 1 billion children still out of school because of the lockdown, there is now a real and present danger that the public health crisis will create a COVID generation who lose out on schooling and whose opportunities are permanently damaged. While the more fortunate have had access to alternatives, the world’s poorest children have been locked out of learning, denied internet access, and with the loss of free school meals once a lifeline for 300 million boys and girls hunger has grown.

An immediate concern, as we bring the lockdown to an end, is the fate of an estimated 30 mil…

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

NEW YORK, Oct 9 2020 (IPS) – Out of global crises spring opportunities for change. In crisis, change is not an option. It is a necessity. And, as Plato famously noted: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Education Cannot Wait () is an invention that sprang out of crisis and was borne of necessity.

Yasmine Sherif

Education Cannot Wait was conceived as a direct response to the lack of financial resources and crisis-sensitive approaches needed to address the learning crisis for 75 million vulnerable children and adolescents impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters. Today, three years into its operations, the growing number of already crisis-affected children and youth are now doubly hit by another crisis, COVID-19, while under the threat of being hit again by the glob…