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Blog post
COVID-19 in Tanzania: Is business as usual response enough?
Tanzania’s unconventional approach to COVID-19 may be slow in response and may lack direction, but its uniqueness illustrates the need for governments to form context-specific smart containment strategies and recovery plans. To maintain multiple competing priorities, the Tanzanian government can increase public health funding to local health centres to implement mass...
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Blog post
How clean hands can save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic
Handwashing with soap is the first line of defence against COVID-19. But without active support to improve water, sanitation and hygiene, the world is much more likely to experience prolonged and repeated pandemics. On June 1st, 9-year-old Stephen Wamukota received the Kenyan presidential award for inventing a pedal-operated hand-washing machine. The contraption, fashioned...
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Blog post
Using e-governance data to improve public service delivery: Evidence from land record changes in Bangladesh
Improving monitoring and evaluation information flows in government bureaucracies can improve service delivery even without explicit incentive structures Studies have shown that better incentive structures for civil servants improve the way they provide public services (Finan et al. 2017). However, due to political constraints it is often difficult to introduce...
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Projecting the impact of COVID-19 on exports in Ethiopia
Agriculture exports will likely be the hardest hit, impacting poor rural livelihoods most. Domestic demand needs to be stimulated and protected. Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa, home to more than 110 million people and one of the fastest growing economies. Growth averaged more than 10% annually over the past decade and a half, leading to substantial...
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Blog post
Making policy decisions under uncertainty
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed policymakers to high levels of uncertainty: governments simply do not have enough information to know what to do. The result is changing policy decisions mid-course: Britain reversed its strategy of building herd immunity when a new estimate put the likely death toll from this strategy at 250,000 people; America’s Centres for Disease...
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Ramping up early detection of COVID-19 with limited resources: The role of pool testing
The ability to rapidly detect COVID-19 is central to saving lives and protecting livelihoods. However, testing equipment and associated kits are expensive and in short supply. As a result, many countries are not conducting anywhere near enough tests. Worse still, many individuals are spreading the virus unknowingly and undetected. The situation is particularly acute in...
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Blog post
Empowering our cities to fight the pandemics of the future
Members of the Cities that Work council come together to delineate the critical challenges that need to be addressed to equip our cities to withstand pandemics. Cities accomplish many wonderful things - they enable people to exchange ideas, goods and services, and many other forms of collaboration. However, the fact that they serve as international and national...
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Blog post
Lockdown without borders: Regional integration and the AfCFTA can drive Africa’s COVID-19 response
In Africa, regional integration has long been viewed as a catalyst for long-term prosperity. With COVID-19 placing severe strain on economies across the continent, regional coordination can be an effective tool to manage the response and promote post-pandemic recovery. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), whilst delayed, has created a platform and dialogue to...
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Blog post
Torn safety nets: How COVID-19 has exposed huge inequalities in global education
In 2018, 258 million children of primary and secondary school age were out of school. Now, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, 1.2 billion children find themselves out of school, at least physically. In both the developed and developing worlds, schools have been more than just places of learning; policy designs have moulded them into safety nets for children....
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Blog post
World Environment Day: Championing clean energy post COVID-19
Combating climate change and ensuring clean air for all is an interdependent effort. As developing country governments electrify their populations, renewable energy offers a range of clean ways of doing so. The recent plunge in energy demand and oil prices, which threatens to reverse recent gains in renewables, should not act as a barrier to transitions towards clean energy...
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Rethinking regulations: Informal settlements in the time of COVID-19
Informal settlements, given their high densities and lacking water and sanitation infrastructure, are potential hotspots for the spread of pandemics like COVID-19. To remedy this, upgrading informal settlements will be essential. However, for long term resilience, we need to tackle the regulatory challenges that keep formal housing prices unattainable for the urban...