COVID-19

Thirty-two of the world’s largest companies stand to see their profits jump by $109 billion more in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic lays bare an economic model that delivers profits for the wealthiest on the back of the poorest, according to a new Oxfam report released this week.

Pharmaceutical and tech companies and wealthy white Americans benefit from dramatic pandemic profits, further exacerbating inequality.

While this pandemic may have created new forms of exclusion, strategies and tools exist to address health promotion, whilst continuing to communicate for peace in conflict-affected contexts. The design of an integrated peacebuilding and technical health response, which is sensitive to individual conflicts’ dynamics and keeps in mind communication challenges such as misinformation, mistrust and reduced interpersonal contact, is crucial.

Efforts to stem the impact of COVID-19 in low to middle-income countries could be creating a health time bomb in their slum communities by deepening existing inequalities, according to an international team of health researchers led by the University of Warwick.

Inkanyezi Events, a Port Elizabeth-based marketing company has partnered with a local technology start-up in South Africa to create virtual exhibition software, which, according to Inkanyezi CEO, Andrew Binning, is receiving "intense global interest".

On humanitarian grounds, the President of Uganda directed its Government to temporarily re-open the Zombo border to allow life-saving aid and protection to be provided to the group of refugees.

The Duterte administration has assigned former military generals to deal with Covid-19 and has sent police Special Forces to contain communities.

The risks to refugee education do not stop with COVID-19. Attacks on schools are a grim and growing reality. The report also elaborates on Africa’s Sahel region where violence has forced the closure of more than 2,500 schools affecting the education of 350,000 students.

Entrepreneurial innovation is creating unprecedented opportunities for Africa to grow its economy, create jobs, and transform people’s lives.

Tourism is the backbone of many economies and a lifeline for millions of people around the world, but COVID-19 has brought it to a halt, causing severe economic consequences globally.