COVID-19 & Conflict
ACCORD has rapidly adapted to the new COVID-19 reality and has refocused and restructured a significant proportion of its staff and effort on identifying & monitoring, tracking & analysing, and preparing & responding to COVID-19 related social unrest and violent conflict in Africa.
ACCORD’s focus on COVID-19
ACCORD has adapted to the new COVID-19 reality, refocusing and restructuring a significant proportion of its staff and its effort on identifying & monitoring, tracking &, analysing, and preparing & responding to COVID-19 related social-unrest and violent conflict in Africa.
Through our networks across Africa, and supported by available online data, ACCORD identifies COVID-19 related incidents and trends that may provide early warning of rising tensions that could develop into social unrest and violent conflict. Once the incidents are captured in the dataset, ACCORD analyses the trends and publishes a weekly COVID-19 Africa Conflict and Resilience Monitor, in order to share the information and analysis with all stakeholders.
ACCORD then works with its in-country networks and other local, regional, continental and international partners and stakeholders, to encourage and support interventions aimed at mitigating, and where possible preventing, COVID-19 related social unrest and violent conflict.
This week's
COVID-19 Conflict & Resilience Monitor
22 Sep 2021
In this week’s monitor we focus on Africa’s youth. We start with a feature article by Dr. Monica Juma, the Cabinet Secretary for Defence of the Republic of Kenya. She shares insights into the role that the youth can and must play in peacebuilding in Africa. Dr. Juma argues that the youth need to support each other’s work towards bridging the gaps created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our second article is by ACCORD’s Keenan Govender who writes an article about the many examples of innovation that Africa’s youth have undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic. He shows how, from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Burkina Faso, to Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, and many more African countries, young people have developed and pioneered different information sharing initiatives and platforms to educate each other on protection and mitigation measures against COVID-19 and to halt the dissemination of misinformation.
We close with an article by Zainab Usman and Juliette Ovadia on Africa’s vaccine production capacity. They argue that the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need for Africa to expand its vaccine production capacity to better serve the continent in the long term.
Feature Articles
Africa’s Youth: A Hope for the Future
In relation to COVID-19 and its impact, particularly in Kenya, what we are seeing is really a manifestation of what is happening throughout the world. We need to use COVID-19 as a huge wakeup call and call on the solidarity of the youth.
Another peaceful election in Africa
The outbreak of COVID -19 and the ferocity with which it has spread across the world imposes the need for an equally formidable response to safeguard not only public health, but also democracy. This is in view of the fact that the magnitude of this global health crisis could topple democratic institutions and offer a glamorous appeasement to governments to use emergency powers to inhibit civil and political rights.
UNOCA’s mandate is extended against the backdrop of persistent regional and transnational challenges in Central Africa
UNOCA’s new mandate covering four key objectives geared towards preventing and resolving conflicts and sustaining peace in Central Africa will begin in September for a three-year period. The Office will leverage its achievements and lessons learnt from its mandate, which is coming to a close, to address the regional and transnational challenges in the context of which the upcoming mandate will be implemented.
COVID-19 News
An introduction to Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
ACCORD is an African based global conflict management institution and think tank with nearly 30 years of experience.
The COVID-19 crisis had disrupted ACCORD’s usual work, but the Institution has rapidly adapted and it has now refocused and restructured a significant proportion of its staff and effort on identifying & monitoring, tracking &, analysing and responding to the COVID-19 related social-unrest and violent conflict in Africa.
Local Contact?
If you are able to share information from your experiences on the ground with the crisis in Africa, we'd really like to hear from you. Please get in touch!