“Aid groups fear this ‘resource steal’ will result in other illnesses, from HIV and TB to malaria and dengue fever, being neglected as finite resources are diverted to deal with COVID-19, costing lives today and storing up huge problems for the future.”
“There have been calls to release detainees, usually coming from NGOs (in South Africa and Cameroon for example) and lawyers (in Algeria), in order to allow health authorities to be able to monitor and protect the prison environment.”
“This change has brought about another debate about the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Nowhere is this debate about NGOs more palpable than in my home country of Tanzania, where at the time of writing the East African nation had recorded a total of 480 confirmed coronavirus cases, 18 deaths and 167 recoveries.”
“In the first four days of the national lockdown, calls doubled and data free messages increased more than tenfold. The centre now receives up to 1,000 calls a day from women and children reporting trauma and abuse. The government said last week that gender-based violence has continued to rise as the lockdown goes on.”
“Even as funders limit ex-ante conditions for receipt of funding, they should establish clear standards for tracking and reporting the allocation and uses of aid—and commit to making this information publicly available.”
“In the immediate term, mass humanitarian assistance creates a high risk of Somalia’s top elites diverting critical resources for their own benefit and creating capital flight from the country. This is already well underway.”
“Several civil society organizations (CSOs) in Liberia are calling on the government to make a timely report to the public of all resources galvanized and spent toward the COVID-19 fight in order to enhance accountability and transparency.”
“Many of these systems are still inherently weak and vulnerable to disruption. The 2020 coronavirus pandemic is one such disruption. It notably differs from its most recent predecessor, the Ebola epidemic, in that it has hit countries across the globe within weeks or months rather than being concentrated in a few geographically contiguous African countries.”
“An initial two-week lockdown has since been extended and, with cases still rising, it’s yet unclear if the lockdown will be lifted or eased soon. While the need for a lockdown might have seemed inevitable amid the COVID-19 outbreak, its abruptness (the government only gave citizens 24-hour notice), has left millions of low income households battling hunger.”
“The world is experiencing what some may think is a ‘typical’ black swan event: rare, extremely impactful, and only retrospectively predictable. It may also be argued that what we are witnessing is rather the consequence of a lack of prevention and preparation in the face of imminent danger.”
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