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By UNDP
SAL | Cabo Verde (IDN) — Cabo Verde President José Maria Neves on December 2 joined the development community in calling for urgent universal vaccine access as a way to mitigate the impact of Omicron and other variants of the Covid-19 virus.
The World Health Organization on December 3 categorized Omicron as a Covid-19 “variant of concern”, signifying that it could be more contagious than other known mutations.
Viewpoint by Alicia Bárcena, Sergio Díaz-Granados, Mathias Cormann, Jutta Urpilainen*
The following is the text of the editorial in the 'Latin American Economic Outlook 2021: Working Together for a Better Recovery'.
PARIS (IDN) — Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has been the region worst affected by the pandemic and is only re-emerging from what is the deepest recession in the region’s history.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Harsh criticism continues to be heard from Africans and their leaders against UK and U.S. travel restrictions allegedly to control the spread of the Omicron Covid-19 variant—now showing up in several U.S. states.
"What is expected is a global approach, not selective," Sarafa Tunji Isola, Nigeria's high commissioner to the UK, told the BBC.
He also echoed comments made by the UN's chief, who described restrictions imposed on some southern African countries as "travel apartheid.”
By Jaya Ramachandaran
PARIS (IDN) — Ministers and high-level representatives from 55 developed and developing countries have proposed a New Deal for Development and stressed the urgency of bridging the vaccine divide and strengthening financing capacities in developing economies. They have called for greater international support for developing countries on the occasion of the Seventh High-level Meeting of the OECD Development Centre, under the heading “Accelerating a just recovery for all” on December 6.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | CAPE TOWN (IDN) — Southern African countries are facing new travel restrictions after the discovery of a handful of coronavirus variants, first found in Botswana. For some African leaders, it’s the classic case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
“Despite the repeated warnings of health leaders,” declared former British prime minister Gordon Brown, “our failure to put vaccines into the arms of people in the developing world is now coming back to haunt us. We were forewarned—and yet here we are.”
By Reinhard Jacobsen
BRUSSELS (IDN) — International scientists and leaders have urged a "global response of collaboration with Africa on COVID-19 following Omicron outbreak". Over a hundred academics and leaders from Europe, Africa, the US among others say in a joint letter to the European Commission and the World Health Organization (WHO) that they are "concerned with the lack of action for vaccination in Africa and solidarity with Africa".
There is no way that isolation of Africa could be the solution to this problem, says the letter. "We ask that the response is based on science."
By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW l MAPUTO (IDN) — The United States and Argentina Embassies in Maputo have donated large quantities of vaccines to the Government of the Republic of Mozambique. As their tremendous and recognizable contributions to help fight the spread of coronavirus, the United States offered 840,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines while Argentina gave 450,000 doses of the AstraZeneca.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY (IDN) — The first batch of Australian Federal Police (AFP) arrived in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara on November 26 to help quell rioting, after the Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare requested Australia's help under a security treaty the country signed with Canberra in 2017.
Australian troops are back in the independent South Pacific Island state, four years after an Australian-led military mission to Solomon Islands ended its 13 year “peace-keeping” operation in the country to put down an ethnic rebellion then.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY (IDN) — If we are going to create a better world in the post-pandemic era higher education (HE) systems need to be more flexible and accessible, and governments need to be made to understand that funding the public university sector is essential to creating more equitable and socially stable societies. This is the message that came out clearly from the World Access to Higher Education Day (WAHED)—a day-long virtual conference coordinated from London and held on November 17 titled “Who will go to University in 2030?”.
By Johann Ivanov*
ACCRA (IDN) — Africa is facing a severe employment crisis. But if nothing is done to find a solution, it could get much worse in the not-too-distant future, as World Bank projections from 2017 show: By 2035, Africa’s working age population will expand by 450 million. At the same time, however, only 100 million jobs are expected be created in the same period. And that was before the Covid-19 pandemic hit: Africa was severely affected and its economies experienced a contraction by 2 per cent in 2020. UNECA estimates that almost 30 million Africans have been pushed below the extreme poverty line.
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