Africa

Australian Catherine Hamlin helped women treated like "modern-day lepers" after giving birth.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Mar 19 2020 (IPS)

The human factor is intimately involved in the origin, spread, and mitigation of the Coronavirus and we cannot afford to ignore that our future existence depends on compassion and cooperation. Response matters!

Some quarantined Italians might recall Giovanni Boccaccio´s The Decameron from 1353 in which people escaping the plague are secluded in a villa where they tell stories to each other. Boccaccio introduced his collection of short stories with an eyewitness account of horrifying human suffering in Florence, which in 1348 was struck by a ”pestilence” that every day ”grew in strength” while it swept relentlessly on from one place to another. In the face of its onrush all the wisdom and ingenuity of man were unavailing. Large quantities of refuse were cleared out of the city by officials appointed for the purpose, all sick persons were forbidden entry, and numerous instructions were issued for safeguarding the people´s health, but all to no avail […] it seemed that all the advice of physicians and all the power of medicine were profitless and unavailing. Perhaps the nature of the illness was such that it allowed no remedy: or perhaps those people who were treating the illness […] being ignorant of its causes, were not prescribing the appropriate cure.1

Boccaccio describes the Black Death as a natural phenomenon and it was common to consider epidemic outbreaks as an inevitable scourge beyond human control. In the mid-1400s the Black Death killed between thirty and eighty percent of Europe’s population. It was not spread by a virus, but by a bacterium nurtured within a flea, that fed on the Black Rat. Everything indicates that the plague’s rapid spread was supported by human action. By the beginning of the 1330s Mongolian armies attacked the Chinese Yuan Empire. During three years following the Mongol conquest, the plague decimated the population of the Hebei Province by ninety percent. Five million people died, while millions fled from the misery caused by war and disease. The plague rapidly expanded throughout Asia, almost simultaneously with the conquering Mongolians. It reached Europe with Genoese galleys arriving in Italy in 1347. They came from the port of Kaffa on the Crimean Peninsula, which had been captured and looted by the Mongolian Ulug Ulus, the Golden Horde.

Even more devastating than the Black Death were diseases that Europeans and Africans, together with cows, pigs and poultry, after 1492 brought with them to the American continent. Millions of people succumbed to viral diseases such as influenza, smallpox, chickenpox, and hepatitis. The effect was generally syndemic, i.e. several diseases coincided to infect and kill people. However, in the mid-1500s the bacterial disease salmonella singlehandedly killed eighty percent of Mexico’s population, which already had been decimated by syndemic epidemics, the disease returned 25 years later killing half of those who had escaped its first attack.

Between 1600 and 1650 malaria and yellow fever, carried by parasites brought by the slave trade, decimated large populations in South America. During the 1700- and 1800s, smallpox killed 80 percent of the indigenous populations in North America.

What made the situation in the Americas unique was that indigenous populations rarely recovered from the pandemics. In Europe, the economy and public health were generally boosted after ravages of epidemic diseases. Due to reduced labour supply, farmers and workers were generally treated better than before the onslaught of a pandemic. The shock effect of mass death made people aware of the importance of cooperation and respect to make life more bearable for their fellow beings. On the contrary, in the Americas, indigenous peoples and imported slaves continued to be treated ruthlessly and their numbers were further decimated by deliberate extinction and inhuman oppression.

The three most deadly plagues recorded by history were the Justinian Plague, which in the mid 500s CE killed an estimated 30 million people, the Black Death and the so-called Third Plague Pandemic, which during the second half of the 19th century killed at least twelve million in China and India. Just like other pandemics the Third Pandemic was worsened by human behaviour and triggered several social upheavals. The natural reservoir of the Third Pandemic was located in southern China. Like the current nCoV-2019, bats were probably infected with the disease, while other kinds of mammals served as intermediate hosts between bats and humans. The plague erupted after Han Chinese had been brought into Western Yunnan to exploit mineral deposits. Returning miners spread the plague to urban centres, while the outbreak helped to recruit desperate and uprooted people to the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1863). Taiping means ”general equality” and was to a great extent a reaction to repression from Imperial Government. Most sources estimate the number of deaths during the rebellion to have been between 20 and 30 million, most of them attributed to plague and famine.2

The plague was brought from Hong Kong to British India, where it in a short time killed at least 10 million and subsequently killed millions more until it abated after thirty years. Colonial Government measures to control the disease included quarantine, isolation camps, and travel restrictions, all enforced by the British military. By 1899, it was apparent that the use of force to implement plague regulations had been counter-productive. Public reactions to the health measures had revealed how medical interventions had been forged by a colonial mentality making a difference between people according to class and ethnicity, thus triggering several revolts and inspiring independence movements.3

Plagues are caused by bacteria, Yersinia pestis, while influenza is spread by a virus. However, both diseases generally originate in rodents, or bats, spreading the disease to other mammals, which transmit it to humans. The worst recorded influenza pandemic is the Spanish Flu, which agonized the entire world by the end of World War I and during a year following the final truce. Tightly-knit groups in trenches and barracks, or during troop transports spread the virus at great speed. Spain was not harder hit than most other European nations, but since this nation did not participate in the war and furthermore had better health control than most other countries, the flu epidemic could be ascertained and tracked, while containment was enforced earlier than in other nations. The pandemic raged at its worst between March 1918 and June 1920, reaching Inuit in the Arctic and Polynesians in the Pacific. The Spanish Flu became the pandemic known to have killed most humans in the shortest time. In twenty-five months, it killed three to six percent of the world population. Human suffering was terrifying. Symptoms were gruesome, lack of oxygen from infected lungs gave faces of the sick a blue tinge, hemorrhages filled their lungs with blood, causing uncontrollable vomiting and nosebleeds with victims drowning in their own fluids. Families were decimated and many orphans were left to die since people were afraid of taking care of them. Just as now, several authorities were for political reasons reluctant to act, thus hastening and widening the spread of the disease.4

Humans are undoubtedly involved in the original extension of the current pandemic. Like many other influenza viruses, nCoV-2019 probably originates in bats. The virus transmitting animal was likely the endangered pangolin, which meat is in many places in South East Asia considered to be a delicacy, while its scales are erroneously assumed to be a remedy for rheumatism. The pangolin is an anteater and may have been infected by insects feeding on dead bats.

After causing the pandemic, humanity has now entered phase two – trying to mitigate its spread and treat those who have been smitten by it. Let us hope that nCoV-2019 will not bring so much misery and death as the Spanish Flu. We live in different times and can now see the actual virus through electron microscopes, researchers can isolate it and establish its genetic sequence, test antiviral drugs and develop vaccines. People can be tested and respirators provided for those in a critical state of infection. Furthermore, we can count upon experiences from earlier epidemics. However, preparedness for a looming pandemic has proven to be utterly deficient. Test kits are lacking. There are not sufficient beds and respirators for moribund patients. Protective gear for hospital staff is insufficient and even missing. Lonely people are isolated in their homes, while information is inadequate and even contradictory. Patients with other ailments than influenza are blocked from medical care. In short – social services, our entire society, are actually badly prepared to cope with an ever worsening situation.

Scientific findings and medical resources have to be implemented and mobilized by decision-makers. Several highly influential politicians have nevertheless, due to ignorance, prestige and political deliberations, allowed critical time to pass before ordering the deployment of necessary measures to attack a ruthless killer like nCoV-2019. Some of them have even had the audacity to bamboozle us with obvious lies and stupidities. People are currently dying and suffering from the ineptness of such elected leaders who are supposed to be servants of the people. If they do not react in time we have to force them to do so and not accept their indifference to human suffering. We all have to support the battle against nCoV-2019 – #StayAtHome.

1 Boccaccio, Giovanni (2003) The Decamaron. London: Penguin Classics.
2 Spence, Jonathan D. (1996) God´s Chinese Son: The Taiping Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan. New York: W.W. Norton.
3 An analysis of the interaction between humans and plagues is provided by McNeill, William H. (1998) Plagues and Peoples. New York: Anchor Books.
4 Deadliest Plague of the 20th century, the Spanish Flu of 1918. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDY5COg2P2c

The post Plagues and People – The Coronavirus in a Historical Perspective appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The continent has a low number of confirmed Covid-19 cases, but is warned to prepare for the worst.

By Vladimir Popov and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
BERLIN and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 19 2020 (IPS)

It is now clear that most East Asian government responses to novel coronavirus or Covid-19 outbreaks have been effective. In Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, the number infected have remained relatively low despite their proximity and vulnerability, while containment in China and South Korea has been impressive.

Vladimir Popov

Some other countries hit by the Covid-19 pandemic are trying to replicate East Asian policy responses, not only in public health, but also in handling economic contraction. More than two decades after the 1997-1998 Asian financial crises, some media are praising East Asia again.

Structural recession?
The contraction is largely due to the government lockdowns to ensure ‘social distancing’ to check the spread of the virus. Mainstream economists call this a structural or supply side recession, to be overcome by expansionary fiscal and monetary policy, predicted to trigger higher inflation.

Less work has reduced incomes and hence demand. To make matters worse, share price collapses have also reduced wealth income. The crisis also offers an opportunity to reallocate resources, among industries and services, or even spatially, from one region to another.

While the pandemic has hit some activities far more than others, e.g., travel, tourism, retail, events, restaurants, entertainment, schools, universities, etc., the crisis offers an opportunity to shift resources to activities of the future, e.g., renewable energy and care work, besides the urgent need to cope with public health emergencies and order.

But a quicker and more efficient solution is elimination of supply constraints by expediting or even mandatorily reallocating labour and finance. One analogy is the transition from manufacturing gramophone records to producing tape-recorders, CDs, DVDs, i-pods, and smart phones with better techniques. Another is the conversion of energy intensive industries into much more energy efficient operations.

Such structural changes are happening all the time, and should not cause recessions if gradual and small scale. But sudden, large scale structural shifts may be more disruptive as time and effort are needed to reallocate resources. Thus, output drops in declining industries are not immediately compensated by production increases in the emerging new industries.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

In a market economy, adjustments typically increase unemployment: industries that become less profitable, due to higher costs, may lay off workers; growing unemployment lowers wages, and it may take a while before the lower labour costs make it worthwhile to raise production in other industries.

Without government assistance to retrain laid off workers and encourage new investments, adjustment will be more painful, lengthy and costly. The recessions in Western countries following the oil price rises in 1973, 1979 and 2007 were due to poorly managed ‘structural shifts’.

Transformational recessions in post-communist economies in the 1990s also exemplify poor management of such structural shifts. In many countries, output reductions during such transitions were greater than in the US Great Depression of the 1930s.

Coping with recession
Managing structural shifts was generally more successful in East Asia as costs and benefits were generally better shared and governments have been less reluctant to intervene in markets and direct investment finance accordingly.

In China, production of protective masks increased from 15 million daily in early February to over 100 million every day by the end of month! Over 3000 enterprises that previously had nothing to do with health products started producing masks, special protective suits, sanitizers and hygiene goods.

The South Korean company Seegene developed a Covid-19 test kit in three weeks and started mass production with its 395 employees dropping all their other work to focus on making kits. Production of the company’s fifty or so other products temporarily ceased for two weeks. Molecular biologists with PhDs stopped research and development to work on the kit assembly line, as senior scientists packaged the kits.

In Western countries, similar examples can be seen in the conversion of industries to defence production during war. In most countries, state assistance has eased and accelerated such transitions. Increased defence procurement caused US economic growth to speed up after the 1937-38 recession to 17-20% annually during 1941-43.

Centrally planned economies were even better at quickly achieving structural shifts while maintaining full employment. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, just before and during the Second World War, the Soviet Union moved considerable resources from agriculture to industry, and from light to heavy industry, especially for defence.

In 1940, Germany produced twice as much steel and more armaments than the Soviet Union, but by 1943, the USSR had surpassed Germany in producing tanks, aircrafts and artillery, decisively changing the course of the war.

Eight decades later, Professor Jamie Galbraith has argued that there is “no acceptable alternative” to the US government covering the full costs of testing and treating Covid-19 cases, without exception and legal risk; to be effective, care should be universal and free of cost.

If the Covid-19 epidemic continues to spread quickly, the ability of countries to quickly redeploy resources will be crucial, not only for fighting the pandemic, but also to overcome the likely recession.

During the 2008-09 Great Recession, China’s huge fiscal stimulus package mitigated the economic slowdown. Its growth rate dropped from 14% in 2007 to 9% in 2009, as some other countries experienced their deepest post-war recessions, even contractions.

Betting only on market forces to do the necessary is not only slow, but also dangerous. The capacity to cope with the inevitable forthcoming slowdown will depend crucially on how governments manage resources to guide structural transitions.

This opinion draws on an earlier paper by Popov which can be read at:
https://doc-research.org/2020/03/how-to-deal-with-the-coronavirus-economic-recession-social-solidarity-and-state-intervention/

Vladimir Popov is a Research Director in the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute in Berlin.

The post State Intervention Necessary to Overcome Covid-19 Threats appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Open sewage in Uganda slum. Credit: I. Jurga, SuSanA

By Vladimir Smakhtin
HAMILTON, Canada, Mar 19 2020 (IPS)

As the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic spreads, guidance on how wash your hands and other measures intensifies.

These recommendations are important, but they are hardly of value to the 40% of humanity lacking access to even the most basic hand washing requirements — soap and water 1.

In most African countries or India, the proportion is even higher – between 50% and 80% of the population.

Even many health centres lack facilities for hand hygiene and safe segregation and disposal of health care waste 2.

In the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), basic water services are absent in 55% of health centers, used by an estimated 900 million people — more than the population of the USA and Europe combined.

More than 1 million deaths each year – newborns and mothers – are associated with unclean births. Overall, poor sanitation and a lack of safe drinking water take the lives of an estimated 4.3 million people annually 3.

This ongoing health crisis — a “water illness pandemic” in all but official definition — has been around for generations but, unlike COVID-19, hardly makes a ripple in international news.

It is unfair to say nothing has been done about it, but progress is so slow 4 5 that many members of vulnerable groups are likely to continue dying without ever having known what it means to have clean water within a five minute walk, much less a home tap.

Since the year 2000, this hidden water pandemic has quietly killed more people than World War II 6.

And it is on pace to kill over 40 million more — roughly equal to the population of Canada — in the next 10 years, by which time the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN’s Agenda 2030 are supposed to have been met.

Those 17 goals include one that aims to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.”

During the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) crisis of 2002-2003, nearly 8,100 people were infected and nearly 800 died. COVID-19 is much less deadly but has already infected 25 times as many people. So, human losses are now over 10 times more than those due to SARS and they keep growing.

Be that as it may, even as COVID-19 takes more lives in the remainder of 2020 despite all efforts of health care providers, and all the measures already taken by governments around the world, the toll will almost surely be dwarfed by the four million people likely to die this year from the lack of safe WAter, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH).

And the water pandemic deaths will not make headlines.

Those who die due to the water pandemic are, naturally, poor. They do not trade or travel internationally, they do not have mortgages, they do not buy insurance. Callous world financial markets pay little attention.

The ongoing water pandemic is even more distressing because many prerequisites for eradicating it already exist. We know how many people do not have WASH, and we know where they live. We even know precisely what to do — the technologies needed are available, including low-cost ones.

The problem is primarily a lack of political will and finance, and each, of course, connects to the other.

The water pandemic is not particularly “sexy,” nor visible in the myriad of other problems that many countries face. Even a decent politician who makes it a priority issue will likely be distracted within her or his term.

As for financing, about 20 years ago we needed an estimated USD 24 billion per year on average over 10 years to bring low-cost, safe water and sanitation to all those who needed it then (inclusive of population growth) 7.

That was probably an underestimate, but even that number was never met. And the shortfall of some USD 17 billion was about equal to annual pet food purchases in Europe and USA…

The absolute numbers required now have not changed much — roughly USD 28 billion per year (from 2015 to 2030) to extend basic WASH services to all those unserved 8. With “safely managed” “continuously available,” and “improved” services, the annual requirement rises to USD 114 billion. Yet, four years into the SDG era, we have not been able to meet the required financing levels even for basic services.

To meet the goals by 2030, we will, naturally, need more in the remaining decade, but it is difficult to express optimism that this will be achieved, even though the investment required represents just around 3% of NATO’s total annual military spending.

It would also be naive to think that suddenly the world would focus entirely on the water pandemic.

And, let’s face it, resolving a big development problem like the lack of WASH requires political stability and the absence of corruption, neither of which is the case in many of the most acute problem areas. So, most likely and unfortunately, progress will only continue slowly.

Can today’s coronavirus crisis “help” accelerate this progress? It might, if the virus seriously hits the countries with low levels of WASH and that, in turn, elevates even higher the risks and levels of infection in wealthier countries.

Only then funds might flow, motivated by self-interest of the world’s most fortunate people. The world really needs to “internalize” caring about the lack of WASH to resolve it. One wonders if it ever will.

So, for the time being, at the very least, stay safe from COVID-19 yourself. Wipe your desk and wash your hands, if you are lucky enough to have water.

1 www.washdata.org
2 https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/wash-in-health-care-facilities-global-report/en/
3 https://www.voanews.com/archive/who-waterborne-disease-worlds-leading-killer
4 https://www.unwater.org/publication_categories/sdg-6-synthesis-report-2018-on-water-and-sanitation/
5 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/24978Report_of_the_SG_on_SDG_Progress_2019.pdf
6 https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/casualties-of-world-war-ii/
7 http://archive.unu.edu/env/water/2000-waterday.html
8 Hutton, G. and Varughese, M. (2016) The Costs of Meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal Targets on Drinking Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene. Summary Report. World Bank Group, 11 pp

The post Coronavirus & Water Pandemics: Doing the Math appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is to commemorate World Water Day on March 22

 

Vladimir Smakhtin is Director of the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, funded by the Government of Canada and hosted by McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.

The post Coronavirus & Water Pandemics: Doing the Math appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Mar 19 2020 (IPS)

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, recently declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation, has taken the world by surprise. The good news is that tremendous scientific and technological advances have permitted scientists to understand a lot about this virus in a short amount of time.

Within just two months of the first case, the causative virus has been identified, its genetic makeup has been determined, and detection methods have been optimised. Scientists have also found that there is more than one strain circulating.

Despite these rapid advances, there is still significant uncertainty. Scientists don’t yet fully understand its transmission route, although person-to-person transmission, through inhalation of droplets in the air, is the most common mode. Another uncertainty is its low detection rate, especially with mild or asymptomatic cases. A third is how weather could affect transmission.

Currently, Africa has very few cases of COVID-19 compared with most other parts of the world. The highest number of cases has been reported in Egypt (currently 126 cases). It remains unclear why this is so. But the trend has generated several kinds of reactions, such as doubts around the slow spread despite the weak health systems in most of the countries, and some attributing the low spread to a low level of urbanisation.

Currently, Africa has very few cases of COVID-19 compared with most other parts of the world. It remains unclear why this is so. But the trend has generated several kinds of reactions

Other factors being cited include the fact that cases are more recent, giving countries more time to prepare, as well as a lack of testing capability.

There is also speculation that the virus has not spread because it cannot thrive in warmer regions, like much of sub-Saharan Africa.

 

The environment and respiratory virus transmission

Among the several environmental factors that influence the survival and spread of respiratory viral infections, air temperature plays a crucial role. Cold weather makes the respiratory system sensitive to infections. This is why people tend to suffer from respiratory infections during cold winter months. In tropical climates, influenza and respiratory viruses are transmitted more during the cold rainy seasons.

Despite the uncertainties surrounding its spread, the SARS-CoV-2 virus may be following this pattern.

Other members of the coronavirus family have displayed a certain degree of sensitivity to weather patterns. For instance, cases of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) were 10 times higher in lower temperatures than higher ones.

However, the effect of air temperature is also related to other factors, such as relative humidity as these viruses prefer low humidity.

Also, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus was stable in air at low temperatures which could favour its spread. Despite this, the virus did not observe a seasonal trend but rather occurred sporadically. Other factors, such as animal (camel-to-human) transmission and weakened immune systems, also favoured its spread.

 

Temperature and SARS-CoV-2

A look at the temperature data of the most affected countries outside China – South Korea, Italy, Iran and Spain – shows that the mean monthly temperatures between January and March of 2020 range between 6 and 12 degrees Celsius.

In sub-Saharan Africa, most countries that have recorded cases of COVID-19 – such as South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Cameroon and Benin – had mean monthly temperatures of 20 to 32 degrees Celsius in this same period. Meanwhile, Algeria and Egypt – North African countries that have seen cases – had monthly temperatures between 11 and 17 degrees Celsius.

Therefore, previous coronaviruses spread more during the colder winter months. Also, there are marked temperature differences between the most affected (colder) and least affected countries (warmer) in the COVID-19 pandemic.

But this pattern alone cannot fully explain the current low number of cases in affected African countries.

The first reason is that following the onset of the outbreak in December in China, measures were taken to prevent the transportation of the virus to other places outside China. This allowed many countries to prepare for any new cases. Secondly, the cases in the African countries are recent, and the first affected persons have been quarantined. Thirdly, many countries do not have adequate capability to test for the virus.

These factors, together with the higher temperatures, could contribute to the apparent lower spread.

 

African countries need to prepare more

Now that the virus has made its way into Africa, countries on the continent need to be more prepared for greater action to contain the virus, especially if it follows a seasonal pattern.

For example, the peak circulation of flu in South Africa is in the winter season between April and July. In Senegal, the peak season is in the rainy season, from July to October. Many other African countries experience these peaks during the cold rainy season. This could mean that the preparedness of most African countries may soon be tested when these seasons come, especially as many more countries are confirming imported cases into the continent.

African countries need to strengthen their capacity in terms of identifying new cases. Health-care facilities and personnel need to be well equipped to manage identified cases. The general public needs to be sensitised on how to go about getting medical attention if they suspect any signs or symptoms. Personal and household hygiene practices using detergents, such as bleach, need to be encouraged to prevent possible environmental transmission.

 

Akebe Luther King Abia, Research Scientist, University of KwaZulu-Natal

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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William Clark Enoch of Queensland. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who comprise only 2.5 percent of Australia’s nearly 24 million population, are part of the oldest continuing culture in the world. At a Covering Climate Now panel in New York on Friday, indigenous leaders reiterated the need for the world to listen to them in addressing climate concerns. Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 19 2020 (IPS)

Mina Setra remembers the story clearly. As a Dayak Pompakng indigenous person from Indonesia, when  visitors from the city who came into her community; brought bottled water with them because they were worried about the water not being suitable for drinking. 

Setra, who is the deputy secretary-general of the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), recalls one of the elders telling the visitors, “This is the problem of you city people: You eat and drink all the dead things. Like the water that is already in a bottle? It is dead water. The vegetables that you buy from the freezer in the supermarket, they’re all dead plants.”

The anecdote sums up a much bigger conversation that is relevant today: how climate change is linked to coronavirus, and why it’s important to listen to indigenous leaders on the matter.

Setra shared the story with IPS when asked about links between climate change and coronavirus, during a panel talk by Covering Climate Now in New York on Friday, where indigenous leaders reiterated the need for the world to listen to them in addressing climate concerns — and reminding them how climate change can lead to or exacerbate a global health crisis as grave as the current virus. 

The talk took place as global communities scrambled to take effective measures against the deadly virus, and just as the U.S. announced a global emergency while struggling to contain its coronavirus cases. More than two months since the world became aware of coronavirus — and increasingly learned of its alarming implicants — the pandemic has globally claimed 8,810 lives, with more than 218,800, cases. 

While global conversations have mainly focused on the issue of death rate, or the racism attached to the virus, or different countries’ isolation methods (or lack thereof), little has been said about the link to climate change.

This remains a much bigger conversation that indigenous leaders want people to be aware of: how climate change can exacerbate the dangers of something like the coronavirus, and why the world should’ve been listening to indigenous leaders to avoid such a catastrophic spread.  While many believe that coronavirus started with a bat, experts argue it’s not so black and white. A February report established what the leaders discussed at the talk: how deforestation can lead to a loss of habitat for many wild animals and species. As a result, they move to habitat that brings them to closer proximity to humans which can lead to repeated contact between them.  

“The inequilibrium of our planet is not just about climate change, but it’s also about the global economy,” Levi Sucre Romero, a member of the BriBri indigenous community from Costa Rica, told IPS at the panel talk. “So coronavirus is now telling the world what we have been saying for thousands of years: that if we do not help protect biodiversity and nature, that we will face this and worse future threats.”

Romero, a coordinator of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests, further highlighted a United Nations’ statement for why it’s important for global communities to work with indigenous leaders and learn from their knowledge. United Nations for Indigenous Peoples did not respond to the IPS’ request for comments. 

While wild animals and species are forced to find a home in close proximity to humans as a result of deforestation, another crucial concern is the treatment of animals by people from commercial hubs and cities that can act as a catalyst for such a global crisis.

“Our animals are not contaminated by themselves. They get contaminated by people,” Tuxá said in response to IPS’ question about the link between coronavirus and climate change. “And the proof is that these viruses start in the commercial centres of the world. There is a direct correlation between this and coronavirus and other pandemics that are to come.”

Tuxá added the next pandemic’s cure can be found in the diversity of indigenous peoples’ lands. 

“That’s why it’s really important to demarcate and recognise our lands, to protect our lands and our biodiversity because future life depends on it,” he said.

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The Nigerian Football Federation becomes the latest African football body to call off its domestic league over coronavirus.

Andrew Harding visits a poor South African neighbourhood to see how it will cope with an outbreak.

The BBC’s Andrew Harding looks at the impact Coronavirus could have in countries across Africa.

By Mario Osava
FOZ DO IGUAÇU, Brazil, Mar 18 2020 (IPS)

“It used to be complicated, I would have lunch with the flies,” recalls Pedro Colombari, laughing, on his 400-hectare farm where he fattens 5,000 pigs and raises 400 cattle outside of a small town in southern Brazil.

Biogas production keeps disease-carrying insects away by extracting the gases from animal waste through anaerobic biodigestion by bacteria. The settling ponds for the manure, which “produced 99 percent of the flies,” have disappeared, according to Colombari.

 

 

Using the biogas, the farmer generates electricity shared with neighbouring properties in a micro-grid set up in the municipality of São Miguel do Iguaçu, 42 km from Foz do Iguaçu on Brazil’s border with Argentina and Paraguay.

For fellow farmer Ademir Escher, the biggest benefit was the reduction of “70 to 80 percent of the stench” from the manure he uses to fertilise his hay crop.

Since last July, the waste from the 1,200 pigs he fattens on his three-hectare farm has been producing biogas for the mini power plant in Entre Rios, 133 km from Foz do Iguaçu.

Escher is one of 18 pig farmers who supply the fuel that produces the energy for almost all of the local government’s offices and services in the municipality of 4,600 inhabitants.

The mini power plant, with an installed capacity of 480 kilowatts, was created as part of programmes implemented by the Itaipu Binational Hydroelectric Power Plant, which promotes alternative energy sources in its area of influence as well as technological innovations, such as electric or biomethane powered vehicles, or purified biogas.

 

 

Itaipu, the second largest hydropower plant in the world, shared by Brazil and Paraguay, has an installed capacity of 14,000 megawatts.

That is equivalent to 29,166 mini power plants like the one in Entre Ríos.

But the binational giant, which accounts for about 11 percent of Brazil’s energy consumption and 88 percent of Paraguay’s, continues to promote biogas production, to generate both electricity and biomethane.

The use of livestock manure and organic waste to produce energy and biofertiliser reduces the sediment that runs into the rivers and pollutes the dam’s reservoir, explained General Luiz Felipe Carbonell, Itaipu’s coordination director.

All sediments affect water quality, which is “critical to power generation,” he said. But organic sediments are especially harmful, because they fuel the proliferation of aquatic fauna that damage the plant’s machinery and the dam, he said.

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By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, Mar 18 2020 (IPS)

The coronavirus pandemic seems to have finally forced governments around the world to ditch their obsession (at least for the moment) with delivering budget surplus. As stock markets tumble, stimulus measures, worth billions of dollars, are announced to boost investor confidence and consumer spending to keep economies running.

Anis Chowdhury

The shift in fiscal strategy is welcome; hopefully the measures will provide some relief to the struggling individuals, families and businesses. But they are short-sighted in so far as most proposed measures do not address the underlying economic malaise even before Covid-19 pandemic.

Fraught with risk
Even though some individuals and businesses may face cash-flow problem, this is not a liquidity crisis. It is primarily a supply shock to the global production or ‘value’ chains due to factories shut down to limit the spread of the virus in China, which accounts for close to 30% of global manufacturing.

However, this massive supply shock is spilling into demand shocks as people are unable to go to work, earn and spend. Significantly, in an over-financialised world, stock markets dominate as a source of wealth, making economies hostage to the ‘investor sentiment’. Therefore, sharp stock market declines worsen the negative wealth effect, further reducing aggregate demand.

Therefore, if the pandemic persists and supply chain disruptions become widespread with countries ‘lockdown’, the stimulus package may exacerbate the dynamics of negative supply-demand spill-overs. This can result in rising inflation and unemployment or ‘stagflation’. The risk of a deep global stagflation, worse than the one in the 1970s, is quite high, especially when governments are acting alone.

Moreover, the band-aid solutions such as pop-up clinics or one-off payments to vulnerable individuals and businesses will not be able to weather the crisis if it escalates. Following the neo-classical counter revolution against Keynesian and development economics in the 1980s, the public health care and social protection systems have been seriously undermined, rendering them awfully inadequate to handle the pandemic.

The stimulus package is also unlikely to ally the panic or fear, and people may not spend the one-off hand-out they receive.

Deeper malaise
Panic is a symptom of heightened uncertainty that have become a permanent feature of neo-liberalism that triumphed with the coming to power of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the USA in the 1980s.

Margaret Thatcher once said, “there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And … people must look to themselves first… There is no such thing as an entitlement.” In his inaugural speech, Ronald Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”

Both in fact echoed the 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume who believed that a nation was a collection of individuals. Thus, Thatcher and Reagan promoted individualism in place of collectivism or solidarity, where “greed is good”, as infamously epitomised by Gordon Gekko of the 1987 iconic film “Wall Street”.

Thatcher and Reagan shrunk the role of the State in preference of privatisation; deregulated the economy in favour of unfettered markets; bashed the union movement on behalf of capital; freed finance to rule the real economy; and used international financial institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank to force open developing economies to multinational corporations and finance capital.

These so-called structural or microeconomic reforms were carried out in the name of boosting productivity and accelerating prosperity. However, what we have witnessed is sustained declines of productivity, falling share of labour income, rising job insecurity, decimation of national manufacturing capabilities, and mounting debts – both government and private.

Obsessed with returning the budget to surplus, the governments have abrogated their economic management responsibility to central banks. Easy money from unconventional monetary policies boosted asset price, thereby exacerbated inequality, and increased vulnerability of the financial system.

Governments continued to cut social protection in the name fiscal consolidation, while offering generous tax cuts for the rich and large corporations, expecting them to invest their greater largesse. Unashamedly, they pay tax consultants and their ilk to find tax loopholes for ‘optimising’ evasion.

Extra-ordinarily excessive executive salary packages, manipulation of stock markets and wage-theft has become a norm when “greed is right”. This has accelerated wealth concentration and income inequality, a constant drag on aggregate demand, sustained through debt-financed consumption.

Meanwhile people lost trust in their governments. Only 43% of citizens in OECD countries trust their governments. Faced with diminished social protection, they see governments – captured by big businesses – turn blind eyes to corporate excesses, and deny climate crisis despite horrific climate related extreme weather conditions.

Developing countries
Developing countries, with limited capabilities, are particularly vulnerable as their economies have become more dependent on international trade and finance and investment after decades of economic liberalisation, openness and government capacity erosion. Certainly US$15 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund will help vulnerable countries battle the spread of the COVID-19.

The IMF and the World Bank have announced emergency support packages. But most of the money from the IMF and the World Bank are loans, often attached with conditions favouring their most influential shareholders. The debt burdens of developing countries will thus rise with global growth faltering.

Opportunity to change course
Although political leaders of the G20 largest economies took bold measures initially in response to the 2008-2009 global financial crisis (GFC), they wasted the opportunity to rein in financial abuses and excesses, cap executive remuneration, improve tax progressivity, address rising wealth concentration and income inequality, strengthen social protection, including public health.

They also ignored the recommendations of the United Nations Stiglitz Commission report on reforming the international monetary and financial system, and the UN Secretary-General’s call for a Global Green New Deal to simultaneously stimulate recovery, address the climate crisis and reverse growing inequality.

Such coordinated global actions would have put the global economy on a more inclusive and sustainable path, more capable of handling a global pandemic and its economic and social consequences. Instead, the global economy has been artificially kept afloat with unconventional monetary policies which contributed to many undesirable side-effects.

Let us not waste this one. Therefore, the stimulus packages should be carefully designed to rebuild the social protection and national health systems. It is well known that “universal systems find it easier to mobilise resources and adapt rules and practices than fragmented, private ones that have to worry about who pays whom and who is liable for what”, as recently highlighted in the Economist.

For longer-term resilience, sustainability, social cohesion and shared prosperity, governments should recalibrate their policies to achieve balanced global growth; to create decent jobs; to address rising inequality; and to tackle climate crisis.

This would require inclusive policymaking at the global level, involving developing countries. At the national level, institutionalising social dialogue – involving workers, professionals, businesses and civil society organizations – will be necessary.

The post Use Stimulus Packages for Longer Term Progress appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Agriculture systems need transformation and strengthening to help achieve youth employment, food security, zero hunger and alleviate poverty. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
IBADAN, Nigeria, Mar 18 2020 (IPS)

“It is not easy to be in agriculture but you must have the perseverance and you must have the passion for it,” Ngozi Okeke (30), the director of operations at Frotchery Farms, tells IPS during a tour of the company’s factory in Ibadan, Nigeria. For Okeke, passion and patience are pivotal to business success. But he also recognises the need to create opportunities to nurture agripreneurship among Africa’s growing ranks of unemployed youth.

The company processes about 1,500 tonnes of live catfish, frozen and smoked fish, fish snacks, fillets and fish powder at its factory in Ogidi Estate in Akobo, Ibadan. The products are then packaged in the company’s brand and sold at local markets across the country.

“When we started our first production of smoked fish, everything got burnt, we lost our money and lost everything. But because we knew what we wanted for ourselves that did not discourage us, it was just a set back and we continued pushing,” Okeke says.

Yusuf Babatunde (30), who is director of marketing, says the company was started with personal savings which the partners invested in buying fish from farmers before they started their own fish production.

“We have believed in high quality when it comes to fish production and our different skills help us to innovate and grow our brand and this is paying off,” Babatunde says.

• Africa has more than 200 million young people between the ages 15 and 34, according to the Africa Development Bank (AfDB). Agriculture is a key economic driver in many countries on the continent, with the African Union having long-ago identified it as a force for social and economic growth in its 2003 Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

But agriculture suffers from negative perceptions among the youth of being labour intensive and offering little gain. 

“Many youth are not patient, youth that go into agriculture have to be patient and they have to persevere serve to succeed,” Okeke says.

Frotchery Farms was established in 2015 by Okeke and Babatunde and their other partner Oni Hammed (31), as graduates of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Youth Agripreneur Programme. The programme provided technical and material resources to launch the enterprise.

• IITA director general Netanya Sanginga established the Youth Agripreneur Programme in 2012 with the aim of changing the perception of Africa’s youth about agriculture to see it as an exciting and profitable business., which enrols 60 youths for hands-on training in agriculture and entrepreneurship from 24 centres across Africa.

Staying power

Agribusiness is lucrative but demands entrepreneurial flair and a never-say-die attitude, something that eludes young people, says Hammed, the managing director who is also in charge of production at Frotchery Farms.

“Most times the youth feel its old people that can go into agriculture and we are trying to change that mindset,” Hammed tells IPS. “It is possible, the youth are innovative and can create something and change the way agriculture is seen.”

Passion yes, but skills better

Skills in agripreneurship are critical for youth employment, especially for those in rural areas.

Research by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that youth are turning away from agriculture and moving into cities to take up low skilled labour, all the while aspiring to high-skilled jobs despite their low level of education.

“Skills mismatch is a big issue and youth need to be trained and retrained in jobs along the agri-food value chain, beyond farming,” Ji-Yeun Rim, project manager at the OCED’s Development Centre in Paris, France, tells IPS.

With the increasing domestic and regional demand for diversified and processed food, there is a high opportunity to develop the agrifood business in Africa, says Ji-Yeun, who is coordinating a project supporting governments in nine African and Asian countries to improve policies targeting youth, especially in the agro-food value chain.

“Many youth employment programmes focus on entrepreneurship but our research finds that entrepreneurship is not for everyone and most youth do not succeed as entrepreneurs and often remain just in subsistence activities,” Ji-Yeun says.

“Entrepreneurship is a false panacea to the youth employment problem. Youth need to be trained in various types of jobs along the agro-food value chain, from farming to processing, services and marketing to help them find salaried positions.”

Research evidence for policy development

Meanwhile, the IITA says more youths are taking advantage of agricultural research and the new technologies designed for agriculture systems in Africa to make a profitable career from farming.

IITA notes though that agriculture systems need transformation and strengthening to help achieve youth employment, food security, zero hunger and alleviate poverty.

To this end, the IITA launched the Enhancing Capacity to Apply Research Evidence (CARE) in Policy for Youth Engagement in Agribusiness and Rural Economic Activities in Africa, a three-year project funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

CARE seeks to increase understanding of poverty reduction, employment impact and factors influencing youth engagement in agribusiness, rural and non-farm economy. It provides grants to young African scholars who aim to study for a Masters or Doctoral Degree. The scholars are helped to build capacity to generate and disseminate evidence-based results to influence policy and practise in supporting economic growth and meeting SDGs goals in Africa.

Currently, 30 scholars have been awarded grants under the CARE project in 2020.

One of the first grantees of the project in 2019, Dolapo Adeyanju, a Masters student from Nigeria, has researched on the impact of agricultural programmes on youth entrepreneurship performance in the West African nation. She found that many young people have accepted agribusiness as a sustainable and profitable career choice.

“Even though, it can be said that there is still a lot to be put in place in terms of creating an enabling environment for young agribusiness owners in the form of policies and interventions that could help young agripreneurs and prospective ones,” Adeyanju says.

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The post Creating Opportunities to Nurture Agripreneurship among Africa’s Youth appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

With the increasing domestic and regional demand for diversified and processed food, there is a high opportunity to develop the agrifood business in Africa as well as a need to create opportunities to nurture agripreneurship among the continent's growing ranks of unemployed youth.

The post Creating Opportunities to Nurture Agripreneurship among Africa’s Youth appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Six of the 1,700 people on board the Aidamira, off Cape Town, are being tested for coronavirus.

"Censorship never again" . Credit: Gustavo Bezerra/Fotos Públicas

By Andrés Cañizález
CARACAS, Mar 18 2020 (IPS)

During his 1992 run, Bill Clinton, then elected US president, made “It’s the economy, stupid!” a household phrase. Coined by campaign advisor James Carville, it pointed out economic and health issues as part of the strategy resulting in the accession of this relatively obscure governor of Arkansas into the White House.

From time to time, this phrase experiences mutations. For this piece, it morphs once again to draw attention to disinformation, an invisible web of sorts wrapped around today’s societies, mostly in Western democracies, where free press has traditionally been one of the pillars of the political system.

Social media today are literally swamped with fake news, hard-to-check information. Everything colludes to make the citizen ill-informed. At a time when societies seem over-informed, they are indeed suffering from disinformation

Censorship and disinformation seem to go hand in hand with authoritarian regimes. China’s model is more geared towards a logic of strict control over what the population reads, sees, or hears; and technology has resulted a fine-mesh sieve for consolidating this model. The aim is to prevent the Chinese society from being informed, accessing information deemed sensitive or dangerous by the regime, that is to say, leaving citizens none the wiser.

Meanwhile, Russia has been developing its own disinformation scheme. More than censoring content, the objective is to flood the public with versions, most of which false, thereby encouraging confusion among citizens. This model seems to aim at shedding doubt on everything and taking nothing for certain.

On a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, American historian and journalist Anne Applebaum gave a clear example of how this Moscow-generated disinformation logic works. She looked into the case of Malaysia Airlines flight 370, with a presumed death toll of 239 passengers in 2014, in an interview for local news site Prodavinci: The information ecosystem was flooded with hundreds of theories, so that, ultimately, nobody would believe anything or knew whom to believe. The goal is to discredit them all. After these versions were circulated, the role of the Russian army in the death of the Malaysia Airlines passengers was just another idea floating on a tide of falsehoods: Objective accomplished.

Towards late 2019, two global organizations defending freedom of expression, with clear differences in emphasis and perspective, agreed to denounce disinformation as a serious threat to democracy in current times: Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières, RSF), and Freedom House, with offices in Washington, D.C., and New York.

RSF, for its part, highlighted how 2019 closed with the fewest journalists killed in a decade and a half worldwide. Nevertheless, this does not equate to an improvement in global freedom of expression. For this organization, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin is one of freedom of expression ‘predators’, and Russian citizens are held hostage to this scheme turned Moscow’s newest worldwide export, disinformation. 

Andrés Cañizález

RSF 2019 World Press Freedom Index on Russia warns: “As TV channels continue to inundate viewers with propaganda, the climate has become very oppressive for those who question the new patriotic and neo-conservative discourse […]”.

Freedom House, meanwhile, noted in its 2019 Freedom on the Net worldwide report that governments around the world are increasingly tapping into social media to manipulate elections and monitor their citizens. This report shows how at least 40 of the 65 countries assessed have advanced social media surveillance software in place to that end.

Disinformation, a sort of good ol’ censorship at its upper stage, is a challenge reaching beyond groups of journalists and media outlets today. The world’s democratic governments can no longer stand idly by as this phenomenon spreads. And, in my opinion, this is not a question requiring a response from the bench or the Legislative.

Social media today are literally swamped with fake news, hard-to-check information. Everything colludes to make the citizen ill-informed. At a time when societies seem over-informed, they are indeed suffering from disinformation.

We are at a tipping point in the field of information. On the one hand, mainstream media – press, radio, and television – are experiencing a period of uncertainty, since a successful, long-term business model is still uncertain; and, on the other hand, citizens’ search for information on social media is gaining ground.

In this regard, democratic governments and concerned endowments must support independent journalism so that it gains self-reinvention capabilities, as free mass media are a guarantee for democratic living. Likewise, there is an urgent need to boost independent studies conducted by universities or NGOs on disinformation and fake news in order to produce documentary evidence of what is happening.

Finally, we must take up educating audiences to develop a critical eye. This would be a fundamental step when standing up to the challenges posed by this new ‘Disinformation, TMI Age’.

 

Andrés Cañizález, Venezuelan journalist and doctor of political science. Researcher at Andrés Bello Catholic University. According to Google Scholar statistics, he is the highest-impacting Venezuelan analyst on the web with his texts on freedom of expression and journalism. He has been founder of the first fact-checking media and fake news observatory in his country

The post It’s Disinformation, Stupid! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Andrés Cañizález is a Venezuelan journalist and Doctor of political science

The post It’s Disinformation, Stupid! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

South Africa's police chief pays tribute to Lt Col Leroy Brewer after he is shot dead in an ambush.

Ebola Outbreak in Nigeria 2014

By Crystal Simeoni
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 18 2020 (IPS)

The coronavirus disease, otherwise known as COVID-19, was first reported in Wuhan, China on the last day of December 2019. When it began to spread rapidly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared it a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020.

As such, the coronavirus puts and continues to put a spotlight on the need for meaningful investment in health care – and public health in particular, understood as ‘the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private communities, and individuals.’

However, in an interesting turn of events brought about by the coronavirus, neoliberal capitalism will be faced with the reality of what its policies actually mean for human life. One just needs to take a look at how the US and African countries like Nigeria are dealing with the outbreak.

Many consider the United States the home of neoliberalism. The healthcare sector in particular has seen reforms in line with neoliberal policies.

Crystal Simeoni

Now, in the midst of a global public health crisis, President Trump is proposing a ‘16% budget cut for the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and an overall 10% reduction to the Department of Health and Human Services.’ Continuous budget cuts like this see American citizens having increasing cost barriers to getting tested.

The WHO says ‘[k]nowing and understanding your epidemic is the first step to defeating it’. This requires testing people to know where the virus could spread in order to contain it. Stories coming out of the US show people being charged over USD 1,000 in some instances to get tested and even more for being quarantined.

Therefore, many are just not going to get tested, further contributing to the spread of the virus. Moreover, many jobs in the US do not cater for paid sick days, which means that for low income earners, staying home when they develop flu like symptoms is not an option.

Similarly, the 80’s and 90’s saw Africa suffer the effects of a series of neoliberal policies under the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), which essentially cut funding for public services and goods including primary education, primary healthcare and public infrastructure.

There was a push for Africa to privatise and have more of a market and export-led orientation in its development.

African countries like Nigeria however, have had to learn hard lessons from the outbreak of Ebola in 2014.

Governments were obliged to cut their budgets for public provision of healthcare, which has been turned into a commodity placing responsibility on the individual rather than on government policy.

This meant that healthcare provision shifted to the private sector – a model many social justice advocates continue to criticise as untenable given that the basic mandate of private corporations is solely to generate profit, not to work for the interest of the general public.

The WHO Constitution advocates ‘…the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right of every human being’ and states are obliged to support this right. The question then remains how this human right is to be ‘enjoyed’ when its provisioning is privatised and not everyone can afford or access it.

This contributes to a change in health seeking behaviour with citizens not visiting health facilities because they simply can’t afford it.

Ebola Outbreak in Nigeria

The situations in the US and Africa are of course different because of different circumstances, different histories and different degrees of power in global politics. The impact of privatising health however are obvious and starkly similar.

African countries like Nigeria however, have had to learn hard lessons from the outbreak of Ebola in 2014. By the time Ebola was dealt with, Nigeria had twenty cases and eight deaths.

It had started in Lagos, one of Africa’s most populous cities, and the government’s ability to contain it under prevailing conditions of a health system on its knees put a shining light on the country. Moreover, Nigeria has also been silently dealing with many different infectious diseases over the last few years.

With all this, the country has learnt some major lessons that it is using to help other African countries to fight COVID-19. This arguably makes the country better prepared to fight the disease than countries like the US.

For instance, Ebola taught Nigeria a crucial lesson in the fight against a disease outbreak that has already erupted, when it would have been easier to stop it early on. Nigeria is now applying what it learned back then with regards to the threat of the coronavirus.

In particular, Nigeria knows that public health interventions cannot be vertical. Vertical responses are interventions that target specific diseases at a given time and are mostly curative, like cholera or malaria interventions for instance.

A number of development partners like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have focused on vertical interventions such as their work on malaria, which however do little to ensure there is a holistic approach to health care.

Currently, Africa is on the verge of a debt crisis largely because of borrowing from private finance in the form of bank loans and bonds. Horizontal approaches, on the other hand, are broader and focus on prevention and care with a focus on the general wellbeing of a community – making it harder for disease to spread rapidly.

Nigeria therefore understands the importance of strengthening systems that regards public health as connected with any other facet of life. Equally important is surveillance, airport and border screenings. Taking people’s temperatures, asking about their travel history and questions related to the symptoms of the disease. A lesson that the US is yet to learn.

But healthcare requires proper investment horizontally in a way only public sector can provide. It means a holistic approach to healthcare that provides for safe water to wash hands to stop the spread of the disease, it requires doctors that are decently paid and work in safe conditions as well as research that is well-resourced.

This complex web of provisions cannot be delivered by a neoliberal agenda fixated on privatisation. Neoliberal policies have been behind Nigeria (and the rest of Africa’s) devastatingly underfunded public healthcare sector. Despite this, Nigeria has managed to circumvent all these hurdles and had a hugely successful response to the Ebola crisis of 2014.

However, the World Bank continues to advance its new ‘Maximising Finance for Development’ agenda, which pushes countries – especially in the Global South – to look to private finance to solve development issues such as health.

On 3 March this year the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund announced that emergency loans would be made available in response to the coronavirus crisis ‘with special attention to poor countries where health systems are the weakest and people are most vulnerable’.

Currently, Africa is on the verge of a debt crisis largely because of borrowing from private finance in the form of bank loans and bonds. This then begs the question why the same financing and neoliberal solutions are being floated as a way to solve the very same systemic problems they created.

*This article was originally published in International Politics and Society. Based in the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Brussels office, International Politics and Society aims to bring the European political debate to a global audience, as well as providing a platform for voices from the Global South.

The post Why Nigeria Knows Better How to Fight Corona Than the US appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Crystal Simeoni is currently the Economic Justice lead at FEMNET – one of Africa’s largest women’s rights networks where she leads a body of work that intersects pan-African feminist narratives into macroeconomic policy processes and spaces at different levels. She is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics.

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