Happy new year to all—welcome back!
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VIEW
Analysis and global perspectives in health, development, planet.
Looking back, looking forward.
WorldWise may have been offline for a while—and the emergence of Omicron has once again absorbed a lot of media attention—but we’ve kept an eye on major developments.
In this post we’re looking at key news items since December and what they tell us about wider trends, as always focusing on the so-called Global South.
Let’s dive straight in.
#1—Extreme weather changes
The news: Typhoon Rai struck the Philippines in late December. Nearly 400 people were killed, dozens went missing, and overall some three million people were affected directly—there were reports of power outages, a health crisis, and shortages of food and clean water. (NYT + TRF + Al Jazeera + BBC + Al Jazeera + AP + Guardian + AP + IFRC + Guardian + Guardian)
An idea worth noting: The disaster is part of a trend—we know that climate change means that such weather events will grow in frequency, size and strength. We also know that extreme weather events displace ever more people from their homes.
Tracy McVeigh, editor of the Guardian Development Network, takes that link a step further to argue that this is good reason to scrap the long-held distinction between “refugee” and “migrant” that persists in migration policy.
She writes:
“The UN … recognises only 26.6 million people as refugees, leaving out key groups such as the 5.9 million Venezuelans who have fled economic meltdown—a crisis that has the climate emergency as its backdrop.”
“A migrant, a refugee, an asylum seeker, a climate refugee—is it time we stopped counting the differences? And started acknowledging that displacement is what happens when people find their living conditions intolerable, almost always through no fault of their own.”
There’s no shortage of examples: Just in the past weeks we’ve had reports of floods in Malaysia that left 70,000 displaced; floods in Sumatra that left 30,000 displaced; and floods in southern Iran that left 3000 people in need of emergency accommodation. In Zimbabwe, the pressure to migrate is linked to droughts rather than floods—another side of the same coin. (VOA + Reuters + AP + Al Jazeera + Al Jazeera + MIT Tech Review)
Looking ahead: Here are three takes on crises to watch as the year unfolds.
Ten humanitarian crises and trends to watch in 2022 - TNH
Conflicts to Watch in 2022 - Council on Foreign Relations
World’s poorest bear brunt of climate crisis: 10 underreported emergencies - Guardian
#2—Perilous migrations
The news: In December at least 54 people were reported dead and over 100 others were injured as a tractor-trailer carrying migrants crashed in Mexico’s southern Chiapas State, which sees regular crossings into the country from Central America. (BBC + WaPo + CNN + Al Jazeera + Guardian + NYT + AP)
It’s one of the hotspots: Refugee asylum claims filed in Mexico almost doubled between 2019 and 2021, reaching a historic high of over 130,000, according to ABC News/AP. Over in Europe, the number of people lost at sea trying to reach Spain doubled in the space of a year, according to estimates by a monitoring group. People from Lebanon are now joining others from the Middle East in attempting to reach Europe via boat journeys to Cyprus. (Euronews + AP)
Speaking of hotspots, remember Africa and Bangladesh: Let’s also not forget that even getting to a camp is not the end of the journey. In Bangladesh, over the past few weeks a fire has swept through the Cox’s Bazar Rohingya refugee camp and thousands of shops have been demolished at Kutupalong refugee camp. In Kenya, the government is planning to close camps at Dadaab that host thousands of refugees, without a clear plan on how to provide for people left without assistance. (Guardian + Guardian + MSF)
#3—Costly inaction on forests, climate
There’s some good news to start with: tropical forests could regenerate in 20 years if left untouched, which is faster than expected. Secondary forests on previously farmed land had 78% of “old growth forest attributes” such as trees, undergrowth and biodiversity, according to a study that found natural regrowth works better than plantings. (Guardian + Sensemaker)
It doesn’t quite counter the bad news: the risk of a shift from rainforest to savannah—an open grassland with sparse vegetation—is perilously close for the Amazon. (New Scientist + NYT)
The worrisome projections go beyond rainforests: We see them in almost every Briefing. These are the most recent reports: A crucial Antarctic ice shelf could fail within five years. Worrying and irreversible changes are also happening in the Arctic, and to the water currents of the Atlantic ocean—all expected to have global ripple effects. And a seasonal 20 metre rise in sea levels in the western Pacific is expected to become a normal occurrence by 2050. (WaPo + Nature + NYT + MIT Tech Review + WaPo + Conversation)
Some new estimates of what it’ll cost: If we reach global warming of 3 degrees, that could translate to $1.6 trillion a year in lost labour. But you don’t even need to look as far ahead as that. Last year, the ten costliest weather disasters caused $170 billion worth of damage worldwide, up from the year before. In the United States alone, it was the second-costliest year in such disasters. (TRF + TRF + Euronews + WaPo)
Will we be compensated when a climate disaster hits?: Journalist Jocelyn Timperley explores this in a piece for Wired, at one point challenging the terms in which this issue has been discussed at global climate negotiations, where it’s been stuck in no-progress land for years. Timperley quotes Sabra Noordeen, special envoy on climate change for the Maldives, who argues that thinking about the issue only in terms of compensation or liability can make it more difficult to move the conversation forward—she says:
“Then it just feels like there's no kind of incentive for the polluter, in a sense, to invest in climate finance or mitigation other than just to make up for the losses that they've caused. It should be seen as an investment for everybody to provide climate finance that addresses adaptation and loss and damage, because it has this impact on everyone. And that's the way to move it forward.”
#4—The social fallout of tech
The news: Rohingya refugees in the UK and US have sued Facebook for allegedly fuelling violence against them in Buddhist-majority Myanmar by allowing hate speech on the platform. (BBC + TRF + Al Jazeera)
Why it matters: It’s a landmark case that could be a wake-up call for social media and Big Tech. But although Facebook has previously admitted mistakes on this front, analysts believe that legal culpability will be much harder to crack. (Sensemaker + TRF)
It fits a wider pattern of tech misuse: And the responsibility doesn’t just rest with companies. We’ve seen many reports of governments using the pandemic to normalise surveillance, recently covered by the LA Times.
Some groups are more vulnerable than others: Code hosting platform GitHub is a case in point—one of its websites in India has been “auctioning” Muslim women, some of whom had publicly criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (WaPo + Rest of World + TRF + Al Jazeera + AP)
#5—Lost education that lasts
It’s an extreme example of a wider trend: Schools have reopened in Uganda this month after a nearly two-year closure due to the pandemic, which left some 15 million young people out of the classroom since March 2020, reports Al Jazeera.
The losses will be hard—if not impossible—to recover: Even if students received education remotely, this doesn’t work as well, according to a global report by UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank which backs previous evidence of massive setbacks that will likely linger for a lifetime, according to the Washington Post. At its worst, the impact of learning deficits will drive inequality among and between countries, social classes and generations.
But there are success stories to learn from: Brazil’s Ceará state is a model for how education can get back on track, argues a piece in the Economist. It describes how after a 20-year education reform, students in this poor state topped nationwide exam scores in maths and literacy in 2015.
Snapshots from the pandemic
Concern for India: The country has recorded a 7-month high in cases as a third wave sets in, with Omicron overtaking Delta and cases doubling every four days. (NYT + BBC + Al Jazeera + Economist + BBC + Al Jazeera + Al Jazeera)
Africa’s shortest wave: South Africa’s Omicron wave appears to have subsided quickly, and across the continent hospital cases have stayed low despite a surge in infection numbers. (WaPo + CIDRAP + Reuters + Bloomberg + Devex)
Does Omicron cause ‘mild’ cases?: Opinions vary. Some studies seem to suggest Omicron spares the lungs and tends to produce less severe disease. But the WHO says it can still be deadly and shouldn’t be called “mild”. (WaPo + Economist + Economist + Axios + Guardian + NYT + Nature + CIDRAP + Euronews).
Vaccine delivery woes continue: India’s Covishield vaccine manufacturer, the largest in the world, has halved its production. Covax is estimated to have delivered less than half the 2 billion doses promised in 2021. African countries are declining donated doses with a short shelf-life. (BBC + WaPo + Devex)
…but some bright spots for vaccine access: Manufacturers are facing some pressure from investors to prioritise equitable distribution. Cuba’s homegrown vaccine is a success story. And a new, easy-to-produce and—crucially—patent-free vaccine developed in the US is already in production in India. It remains to be seen whether CORBEVAX will be the game-changer it promises to be. (FT + NBC + Guardian + NPR Goats & Soda + New Atlas)
Will we be “forever boosting”?: Boosters are good for now, but questions are being raised about whether it’s a viable public health strategy in the long-run. Adapting to endemic COVID may look different depending on the country, and politics will influence that as much as response capacities do. (NYT + Nature + Al Jazeera + Al Jazeera)
From the week’s global soundtrack 🌐
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