The World Food Programme has predicted that the coronavirus pandemic will double the number of people facing crisis levels of hunger. “We could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions,” according to its executive director, if we don’t act to avert them.
Before the spread of the coronavirus, almost 600 million people worldwide were estimated to be suffering from anxiety or depression. Suicide took the lives of 800,000 people a year, and was the second leading cause of death among those aged 15–29. These figures are now likely to rise.
A response led by the community and supported by outsiders is likely to be the most effective means of controlling COVID-19 in slums.
Justice systems are vital to responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigating its worst effects, but they will need to overcome many challenges if they are to operate effectively.
Last year, our Justice for All report noted that 1.5 billion people had a justice problem they could not resolve. Now, as we gear up to face a global...
Western governments, following the example of China, have adopted broadly similar approaches to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. After initial hesitation, and...
Book review If you’ve ever written a book about Guinea-Bissau, you will know that popular interest in this remote little West African country is scant. Your...
Imagine yourself as a 12-year-old. Perhaps you’ve just squeezed your first zit or been crippled by your first crush. You’ve also just graduated from primary...
A couple of weeks ago, realising that it was struggling to make a convincing economic case for Britain to leave the European Union, the Brexit campaign...
My book The Ringtone and the Drum turned two last Sunday. Conveniently, one of the countries it covers, Burkina Faso, promptly had a revolution. Yesterday a...
In the post-colonial period, African politics has tended to look something like this (as excerpted from my book on West Africa, The Ringtone and the Drum):...
Ukerewe, the island in the Tanzanian half of Lake Victoria where I am currently spending a few months, is famous for witchcraft. Witches are found in every...
During my annual visits to Turkey over the past fifteen years, I have taken a great interest in the country's development. My wife was born in the...
Sunday's El País carried a surprising article detailing the increase in immigration from Africa to Spain in the past two years. Although Spain is in the...
Unlike many of those who were still in their childhood or teens through most of her reign, I don't have a very strong view about Margaret Thatcher. I wasn't...
Rear Admiral Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto, who was arrested by US agents in a sting operation in international waters on Tuesday, has had an exciting career....
When I was young, naive and ignorant both of humanity's complexity and my own limitations, I believed I would one day save the world. Once I reached...
The ever-reliable Michael Lewis, reviewing a new book by a repentant Goldman Sachs employee, nails the (continuing) financial/political crisis: Stop and think...
Matthew Yglesias in Slate has worked out some of what would happen if the United States opened up its borders: According to Gallup there are 150 million...
'We need to be absolutely clear whose fault this is. It is the terrorists who are responsible for this attack and for the loss of life.' (David Cameron, House...
If the politics of climate change end up polarised, is that so bad? No – it’s disastrous. Or so I’ve long thought. Look at the US – where climate is even more polarised than abortion. Result: decades of flip flopping. Ambition under Clinton; reversal...
Official development assistance (ODA) – or aid – is a small but conspicuous pillar of the international order, and its frailties are being exposed by COVID as surely as those of the other foundations of this order. The assumptions underpinning aid and its management...
Since its onset, one striking feature of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has been the narrative power of its novelty. This global narrative depicts COVID-19 pushing humanity towards a ‘historical divide’ of BC and AC (before and after COVID-19), where unknown,...