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Ed Webb

'People Are Scared': U.S. Aid Officials in Africa Fight a Resurgent COVID-19 - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...s-usaid-africa-health-care-aid

US USA Africa pandemics pandemic health diplomats aid USAID SouthAfrica

shared by Ed Webb on 04 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • Internal memos and emails sent late January and obtained by Foreign Policy detail how U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) missions in southern Africa are grappling with low morale and staff shortages due to illness and that at least three USAID members of staff in the region have died from COVID-19 as well as several staff members from local partner organizations. 
  • The internal communications reflect how rapidly the virus is spreading in the developing world and presents an urgent challenge to the Biden administration
  • in the final months of the Trump administration, despite rapidly rising case numbers, U.S. officials posted in sub-Saharan Africa said they hadn’t heard any further guidance about when—or whether—they may be permitted to leave their posts. 
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  • In South Africa, one of the hardest-hit countries on the continent by the pandemic, a mutated and more transmissible variant of the virus emerged less than two months ago, leading to a massive spike in both the number of cases and deaths.
  • Experts and humanitarian workers fear that even as high-income countries in the developed world get a handle on cases and begin distributing vaccines, poorer and developing countries in Africa will be left behind.
  • Data from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention released on Tuesday shows that the African continent has tracked more than 3.6 million COVID-19 cases and some 91,500 deaths. That number is expected to increase further in the coming weeks.
  • Last month, then-U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks announced that she had spent 10 days in an intensive care unit after developing COVID-19 in late December. Marks, a luxury handbag designer and Trump political appointee, drew fire from embassy staff last March when she returned to the country and did not self-isolate after attending an event at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort despite some attendees later testing positive for COVID-19. 
  • South Africa has a highly developed health care system, but in poorer countries in the region embassies are relying on medical evacuation to deal with severe cases. One official in the region said medical evacuations have been taking 48 to 72 hours, adding, “In terms of COVID, that could be a death sentence.”
  • According to an internal USAID memo, patients in Eswatini, which borders South Africa, were dying due to a lack of oxygen supplies
Ed Webb

What the US's 'Fair Share' of Emissions Reductions Looks Like - 0 views

earther.gizmodo.com/...amp

US USA opinion climate sustainability development aid USAID

shared by Ed Webb on 22 May 21 - Cached
  • the full weight of American emissions past and present are contributing to the floods, heat waves, and other disasters that disproportionately ravage the Global South. The U.S. owes it to the world to make right on the carbon pollution that allowed it to reach the pinnacle of the world as the richest nation on Earth.
  • Putting meaningful resources into the Green Climate Fund, the United Nations grantmaking body that furnishes capital for international climate action, is one avenue to meet the U.S. climate debt. The new report suggests $8 billion. For context, John Kerry, the Biden administration’s climate czar, promised $2 billion. That would only fulfill the nation’s existing pledges.
  • Research shows that U.S. companies have reduced their emissions and pollution at home by offshoring manufacturing to poorer nations with looser regulations. In the already stifling heat in places like India and Bangladesh, that offshored pollution can become more deadly. American consumption has also created environmental crises abroad. The U.S. is responsible for more plastic pollution than any other country, which can harm marine ecosystems already under stress due to hotter waters and ocean acidification.
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  • USAID and other international development programs could also channel still more money to mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage financing. Ambitiously, the authors of the fair share pledge suggest the country invest up to $3 trillion into a debt relief and green recovery package to help poor countries with limited means adhere to the Paris Agreement’s goals. That should all come without strings attached since it should help relieve the burdens of debt, not create more of it
  • the U.S. should recognize its role in global destabilization and grant people protections within its borders
  • Communities within U.S. borders have also been exploited, from California to Appalachia to the South. This is the wealthiest nation in the world, and the climate crisis is the most urgent threat facing us. There’s no reason to choose between transformative national and international action. We need both.
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