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“Double masking” is a real thing!

“Double Masked” Amanda Gorman arrives at Joe Biden’s inauguration.Photograph: Win McNamee/EPA The best chance to defeat a rapidly evolving global pandemic is to institute rapidly evolving responses. At first it was not even recommended to wear a mask and now the CDC (and White House chief medical officer Dr. Anthony Fauci) recommends wearing two masks or “double-mask” in order to stay safe…

Equalizer: The World Bank Committed $12 Billion for Vaccinations.

The World Bank has committed $12 billion to emerging countries, supporting vaccination programs that have failed to keep pace with those of developed nations. The World Bank president David Malpass said the money will be in the form of grants or on “highly concessional terms,” in a statement following a Jan. 27 virtual meeting on the Africa Covid-19 vaccine financing and deployment strategy. At…

Four Zimbabwean security chiefs sanctioned as the UK launches a new sanctions regime.

SANCTIONED: Zimbabwe’s State Security Minister Owen “Mudha” Ncube In a press statement the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office announced what they termed the first set of designations of individuals under the UK’s Zimbabwe sanctions regime signalling the possibility of more additions. The justification for the targeted sanctions is the human rights violations of 2019 where protestors…

COVID-19: Why is the Zimbabwean academia not helping?

28 years ago Prof Jonathan Moyo (@ProfJNMoyo) in his book The Politics of Administration, Understanding Bureaucracy in Africa condemned lack research in third world countries. He highlighted then that scientific papers produced by the average Black African country is (…) less than that generated by a typical American small college (…)” He went on to highlight that the implications (of lack of…

What Future for Civil Society in Zimbabwe? Notes from today’s youth virtual meeting.

Screenshot of the audio virtual meeting. 30 January 2021. Zimbabwe’s civic space has been shrinking again in the past few years post relative opening up just after the 2017 coup. Civil society leaders and activists have been working with international allies like the Civicus network to find ways to operate in a tight environment as well as compelling relevant authorities to free up the civic…

Zim paediatrician appointed Save The Children UK chair.

Dr Tsitsi Chawatama. (Pic credit: African Shapers) The Third Sector reported on 27 January that Zimbabwean born Dr Tsitsi Chawatama (@TsitsiDC), who is based at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in London, succeeded Save The Children Fund UK interim chair Charles Steel this week. Charles Steel has served as interim chair for the past two years, since the early departure…

CPI: Zimbabwe not making any progress in addressing corruption.

The Corruption Perceptions Index 2020 Report The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2020 is out and it doesn’t look good. Zimbabwe which scored 24/100 in 2019 maintained the same score which is way below the average score of 43/100 in 2020. Compared to others Zimbabwe ranked 157 a slight improvement from 2019 when it was ranked 158 out of the ranked 180 countries. This…

People want climate action, governments must listen!

The UNDP People’s Climate Vote Results. Due to the multiplicity of UN reports this time of the year it took me over two days to read the UN Development Programme (UNDP)’s “People’s Climate Vote” poll report, but finally I have to write my impressions for the poll results. The report is filled with good news, I will just focus with three which I think development professionals and ordinary…

UN Secretary General commends African’s COVID-19 vaccine acquisition efforts.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a high-level webinar on the African COVID-19 vaccine financing and deployment strategy that he commend the African Union’s efforts through the COVID-19 African Vaccine Acquisition Task Force to secure an additional 270 million vaccine doses for African countries. The Secretary General…

A bleak 2021 for Zimbabwe, African economies – UN Report

Hawkers’ stalls in Harare, Zimbabwe, lie deserted following lockdown in a bid to slow down the spread of the coronavirus.EFE-EPA/Aaron Ufumeli The World Economic Situation and Prospects 2021 report warns that Africa faces the dire risk of the reversal of the development gains of recent decades and set it back years away from achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). After a massive…

UN: Courtroom increasingly becoming relevant in addressing climate change.

The Global Climate Litigation Report 2020 Status Review Climate litigation cases have spiked in recent years, making the courtroom increasingly relevant to efforts to address climate change around the world, an UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report released on 26 January 2021 said. It finds that climate cases have nearly doubled over the last three years and are increasingly compelling…

2021: UN report paints a gloomy picture for the global economy.

In the World Economic Situation and Prospects Report released on 25 January 2021 The United Nations said that global economic recovery remains precarious in 2021 and the expected rebound of 4.7 percent would barely offset the losses of 2020. In 2020, the world economy shrank by 4.3 percent, over two and half times more than during the global financial crisis of 2009. The report warns that the…

Newly approved HIV treatment combo offers hope.

On the 21 January 2020 the Associated Press reported that the U.S. regulators have approved the first long-acting drug combo for HIV, monthly shots that can replace the daily pills now used to treat people living with HIV. The approval of the combo called Cabenuva is expected to make it easier for people to stay on track with their HIV medicines and to do so with more privacy. It’s a huge and…

Almost all Africans would take a COVID-19 vaccine despite conspiracy theories.

About 80% of Africans surveyed by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Vaccine Confidence Project, and Orb International said they were willing to take a COVID-19 vaccine once it’s publicly available and deemed safe and effective. Of the 20% that said they would not take a vaccine, safety was the leading concern. The survey…

Zimbabwe making positive strides in controlling the HIV pandemic.

Despite the mercy condition of Zimbabwe’s healthcare systems the country seems to be on track to Achieve HIV Epidemic Control by 2030 that is according to results from the second Zimbabwe Population-based HIV Impact Assessment survey of 2020 (ZIMPHIA 2020) whose results were released in December 2020. In a country facing a raging COVID-19 pandemic any good news from the healthcare system is…

Fear persists as UK coronavirus variant seems more deadly

Early evidence suggests the variant of coronavirus that emerged in the UK may be more deadly, The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. However, there remains huge uncertainty around the numbers – and vaccines are still expected to work. The data comes from mathematicians comparing death rates in people infected with either the new or the old versions of the virus. The new more infectious…