Following up on the implementation of AU Guidelines on Gender-Responsive Responses to mitigate COVID-19 adverse effects on women and girls.
Initiative to create more opportunities for young people’s participation and engagement.
Professor Wiseman Lumkile Nkuhlu has been appointed to represent the Southern African region.
In addition to unemployment and labour market vulnerabilities, some social protection mechanisms and economic policy responses implemented in the context of the COVID-19 crisis do not seem to consider young people as a specific vulnerable category.
National lockdowns, implemented by governments around the world, to curb the spread of COVID-19 has had the unintended consequence of contributing to an increase in violence against women and girls.
COVID-19 should alert us to the reality that developing a vaccine cannot be a national project. The pandemic is a call for global cooperation and solidarity.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted peace operations. In the short-term activities have been reduced to the most critical, rotations have been frozen, and most staff are working remotely. Most of the missions have adapted remarkably well. However, even more changes are likely in the medium term when the global economic recession, that is expected to follow in the wake of the virus may force peace operations to drastically contract in size and scope.
The spread of COVID-19, and the measures taken to contain it, will increase the risk of social unrest and violent conflict
The primary goal in the fight against COVID-19 is to prevent the spread of the virus and to care for those infected. As a result, African countries have acted faster than any region with a comparable rate of infection, and in the process thousands of lives have been saved.
COVID-19 may have started as a public health emergency, but at this stage, the measures taken to contain the crisis have developed into an economic crisis, that has more of an impact on people’s livelihoods than the virus itself.