Tag: Health

Covid-19, Français

COVID-19 : Il est temps d’investir dans la santé des plus pauvres du monde

Par Christoph Benn, Directeur, Global Health Diplomacy, Joep Lange Institute

Ce blog*  fait partie d’une série sur la lutte contre le COVID-19 dans les pays en voie de développement. Visitez la page dédiée de l’OCDE pour accéder aux données, analyses et recommandations de l’OCDE sur les impacts sanitaires, économiques, financiers et sociétaux de COVID-19 dans le monde.

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(Read this blog in English)

La crise sanitaire sans précédent que représente le Covid-19 pour le monde requiert une réponse mondiale, elle aussi, sans précédent. De nombreux pays riches ont annoncé d’importants plans de sauvetage et de relance pour maintenir leurs économies à flot. Mais alors que la pandémie se déploie en Afrique, en Asie du Sud et en Amérique latine, la communauté mondiale doit maintenant renforcer sa solidarité avec les communautés les plus vulnérables et réfléchir aux instruments les mieux adaptés pour répondre à cette crise globale. Il est désormais temps d’investir dans la santé des personnes les plus pauvres de notre planète à travers des mécanismes mondiaux qui nous protègent tous et auxquels tous les pays contribueraient selon leurs capacités.

Continue reading “COVID-19 : Il est temps d’investir dans la santé des plus pauvres du monde”

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Covid-19

COVID-19: It’s time to invest in the health of the world’s poorest people

By Christoph Benn, Director, Global Health Diplomacy, Joep Lange Institute

This blog* is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.

funding-health-financing(Lire ce blog en français)

Covid-19 presents an unprecedented health crisis for the world that requires unprecedented responses. Many rich countries have announced huge bail-out and stimulus packages to keep their economies afloat. But as the pandemic now unfolds in Africa, South Asia and Latin America, the global community needs to step up its solidarity with the most vulnerable communities and consider which instruments are best suited to address this global emergency. Now is the time to invest in the health of the poorest people around the world through global mechanisms that serve us all and in which all countries contribute according to their ability. Continue reading “COVID-19: It’s time to invest in the health of the world’s poorest people”

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Africa, Covid-19

Global response to COVID-19 in Africa must protect lives, livelihoods, and freedoms

By E. Gyimah-Boadi, Board Chairman and interim CEO of Afrobarometer, and Carolyn Logan, Director of Analysis for Afrobarometer

This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.

Madina Hospital in Mogadishu
UN Photo – Tobin Jones

As COVID-19 gains a foothold on the continent, fears are growing that Africa’s fragile health-care systems and economies will provide little protection from the pandemic’s potential ravages. At the same time, trust in government institutions – one of the most critical resources needed to mount effective societal responses that depend on widespread public cooperation – is sorely lacking in many African countries. Concern is also growing that regimes that are either unscrupulous or desperate may take advantage of local fears and global pressures to place not just essential, temporary restrictions on public freedoms, but to roll back hard-won gains on a more permanent basis.

 

While citizens may be ill-equipped to speak or act in defense of their freedoms during an emerging crisis, perceptions that governments are abusing their powers and taking advantage of the situation could undermine public trust still further. Limiting the effects of the pandemic on Africa and saving lives requires an urgent global response. But the international community must also provide support in ways that strengthen, rather than undermine, Africans’ freedoms. Continue reading “Global response to COVID-19 in Africa must protect lives, livelihoods, and freedoms”

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Africa, Covid-19, Social Protection

COVID-19 and beyond: How can Africa’s health systems cope?

By Riku Elovainio, Consultant in global health and social protection and Alexander Pick, OECD Development Centre

This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.

globe-life-line-AFRICA(Lire ce blog en français)

The Covid-19 pandemic threatens to overwhelm health systems everywhere. With the virus now present in 52 African countries, will health systems in the region, many of which were under strain before the pandemic and have no reserve capacity, be able to cope? International support will be crucial in helping countries in Africa respond, but efforts to strengthen the region’s health services in the short term confront an array of obstacles that extend beyond the health sector itself. Even a crisis of these proportions should not obscure the long-term priorities for Africa’s health systems, on which depends its capacity to deal with day-to-day demand, let alone the next crisis.

The West African Ebola epidemic of 2014-2016 exposed the affected countries’ limited capacity to deal with a widespread disease outbreak. The lessons for health systems across Africa were understood yet have not prompted a step change in public health services, even in the countries where the Ebola crisis struck. While there is great variation across Africa (South Africa’s health system is clearly very different from South Sudan’s, for example), many countries exhibit the same gaps in their health systems that make it extremely difficult to scale up a short-term response.

Continue reading “COVID-19 and beyond: How can Africa’s health systems cope?”

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Africa, Covid-19, Français, Human Development, Youth

Avec ou sans, pendant et après le Covid-19, priorité aux réformes des systèmes de santé et d’éducation en Afrique de l’Ouest

Par Gilles Yabi, fondateur de WATHI, think tank citoyen de l’Afrique de l’Ouest

Ce blog fait partie d’une série sur la lutte contre le COVID-19 dans les pays en voie de développement. Visitez la page dédiée de l’OCDE pour accéder aux données, analyses et recommandations de l’OCDE sur les impacts sanitaires, économiques, financiers et sociétaux de COVID-19 dans le monde.

SWAC-blog-covid19En Afrique de l’Ouest, les impacts de Covid-19 seront-ils catastrophiques ? La crise Ebola a révélé la très grande faiblesse des systèmes sanitaires des pays touchés à l’époque dans la région, Liberia, Sierra Leone et Guinée principalement. Si des enseignements importants ont été tirés, avec la mise en place de centres dédiés aux urgences sanitaires dans plusieurs pays, les systèmes de santé dans leur ensemble ne se sont pas particulièrement renforcés. Les ménages assument l’essentiel des dépenses de santé par rapport aux États, les inégalités d’accès aux soins sont frappantes, et les hôpitaux manquent cruellement de personnel qualifié, de matériel, de dispositif de maintenance des équipements et de médicaments, ainsi que de capacités d’accueil et, parfois, de salubrité. La crise du coronavirus exacerbera sans doute la situation. Il est plus que jamais primordial de renforcer et d’investir dans les systèmes de santé, sans quoi la plupart des pays d’Afrique de l’Ouest ne pourront faire face ni aux crises sanitaires, comme celle du Covid-19, ni aux nombreuses autres maladies infectieuses ou chroniques.

Continue reading “Avec ou sans, pendant et après le Covid-19, priorité aux réformes des systèmes de santé et d’éducation en Afrique de l’Ouest”

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Covid-19, Migration, Policy

COVID-19: consequences for international migration and development

By Jason Gagnon, Development economist, OECD Development Centre

This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.

(Lisez ce blog en français)

While the COVID-19 pandemic is not a migration issue, it is being viewed and managed as one. Fear-exploiting rhetoric around the crisis could provide the political space to push structural anti-migration policies through. This would be detrimental to the rights and health of migrants, and the positive impact migrants have on development – in 2017, an estimated 258 million international migrants filled labour shortages and contributed to transferring much needed skills, goods and services around the globe.

We have made remarkable strides to strengthen migration governance but if migrants’ rights are not protected in the short and long-term response to the COVID-19 crisis, progress could unravel, putting migrants and their families, as well as some of the foundations of our global economy at risk. Continue reading “COVID-19: consequences for international migration and development”

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Covid-19, Latin America and the Caribbean, New social contract

Latin America and the Caribbean in the time of COVID-19: Preventing the vulnerable from falling behind

By Federico Bonaglia, Deputy Director, OECD Development Centre, and Sebastian Nieto Parra, Head of Latin America and the Caribbean Unit, OECD Development Centre

This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries.

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The necessary containment measures against COVID-19 have engendered an unprecedented global economic crisis, combining supply and demand side shocks. Now, the pandemic is affecting Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and countries are bracing for the ripple effects. Just months ago, many countries in the region experienced a wave of mass protests driven by deep social discontent, frustrated aspirations, persistent vulnerability and growing poverty. The crisis will exacerbate these problems.

Beyond the magnitude of the impacts on already weak health systems – some 125 million people still lack access to basic health services – the overwhelming socioeconomic impact of the crisis could disproportionately fall on vulnerable and poor households if ambitious policy responses are not put in place.

Continue reading “Latin America and the Caribbean in the time of COVID-19: Preventing the vulnerable from falling behind”
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Africa, Asia, Covid-19, Development in Transition, Latin America and the Caribbean, Policy

Covid-19: time to unleash the power of international co-operation

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By Mario Pezzini, former Director, OECD Development Centre and Special Advisor to the OECD Secretary General on Development

This blog* is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.

Development co-operationThe rapid spread of the dire human, social and economic impacts of the coronavirus crisis shows just how interconnected we are. International co-operation has become –literally– vital.

A health crisis has set off a global economic crisis, where shocks on the demand and supply sides are combining in an unprecedented scenario. Many developing countries are bracing themselves. While Europe is struggling to contain and cope with a spiralling number of cases and fatalities, the effects in countries where health systems are already weak, economies are highly dependent on global demand, and strict containment policies are more difficult to implement, could be even more disastrous.

Major outbreaks in developing countries could cause the collapse of weak health systems and expose gaps in social protection programmes, especially in Africa, where so many schemes rely on official development assistance. A humanitarian crisis may be in the making: travel restrictions affect the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and infections in refugee camps – largely hosted in developing countries – will be difficult to fight. The ILO estimates that 25 million jobs could be lost worldwide, possibly more, as the majority of workers in developing countries are in the informal economy. Continue reading “Covid-19: time to unleash the power of international co-operation”

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Covid-19, Policy

Lessons from coronavirus for the future of ‘aid’

By Jonathan Glennie, Senior Fellow,  Joep Lange Institute

This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.

In December 2019 cases of a little-known disease called coronavirus were reported in Wuhan, a city in China with a population of about 11 million. As of 20 January 2020 there were 282 confirmed cases of the virus, 278 of which originated in China. Less than three months later, over 3,400 people in Italy were dead. Countries all over the world are gearing up for long periods of lockdown as a global pandemic takes hold. If ever proof were needed that health concerns in one country require a co-ordinated and well-funded global response, this is it.

What does this tell us about the future of global cooperation? The next chapter in the story of the China−Italy coronavirus relationship is equally relevant. On 13 March China sent a planeload of experts and medical supplies to Italy, including masks and respirators. Italy is one of the world’s richest countries (average income, US$34,480); despite rapid advance over the past decades, China is still much poorer (average income, US$9,770).

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Africa, Covid-19

When COVID-19 Comes to Africa

By Arkebe Oqubay, Senior Minister and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, distinguished fellow at the Overseas Development Institute and author

This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.

covid19-africaThere is no telling how long it will take to bring the COVID-19 coronavirus under control, or how many people will be affected. But African governments, in cooperation with communities and international actors, can take steps now to limit the damage – and lay the foundations for a healthier, more resilient future.

Addia Ababa – The COVID-19 coronavirus – which has now spread to more than 100 countries – has pushed the world into “uncharted territory,” according to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom. So far, Africa has recorded relatively few infections, but there is no reason to believe this won’t change. When it does, the results could be catastrophic.

One need only recall the West African Ebola epidemic of 2014-2016 to comprehend the potential damage. The hardest-hit countries were Guinea (with 3,814 cases and 2,544 deaths), Liberia (10,678 cases and 4,810 deaths), and Sierra Leone (14,124 cases and 3,956 deaths). Moreover, since August 2018, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has faced its own large-scale Ebola epidemic, with more than 3,444 cases and 2,264 deaths (as of March 10, 2020). Continue reading “When COVID-19 Comes to Africa”

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