Covid-19

In November 2020 amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Sikhulile Moyo and Prof. Tulio de Oliveira discovered the omicron variant. Many Western countries reacted by putting in place harsh travel restrictions for Southern Africa. A Conversation with the winners of the German Africa Award 2022.

We are experiencing two very different pandemic realities between low-income and high-income countries. Unfortunately, instead of seeking a solidarity-based response, the international community has once again demonstrated its disunity in this health crisis. The task now is to regain credibility and rebuild trust.

The travel restrictions imposed by the European Union on people traveling from southern Africa after the discovery of the Omicron variant, will potentially have a long-term impact on the EU-AU relations.

For a significant part of the last two years, the United States and Germany were polar opposites with regards to their success in handling COVID-19. While the Trump administration’s chaotic response to the virus left states effectively to fend for themselves, widespread testing, ample intensive care beds, and high levels of trust in the government led to talk of a “German exception” in the early months of the pandemic.

The corona pandemic has exposed and further exacerbated various built-in inequalities and unsustainable structures of how we organize the economy and social life globally, from seasonal agricultural work to elderly care – and this is also true for gender relations in Hungary.

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the integration of technology into our daily lives. This article series examines how digital technology affects innovation, inclusion, digital rights, and democracy in different countries.

The diverse involvement of women at local, regional and federal level has long been central to the political development of the United States. Nevertheless, women are still significantly underrepresented in political office. Can this change now?

The Corona crisis demonstrated in fast motion the dilemma into which market-state-thinking leads. This is where commons come into play, i.e. what people do and are able to do with each other in a self-determined, self-organised, needs-oriented manner and without any marketing interest.

For many LGBTI+ people, staying home raises domestic violence concerns. Already among the most vulnerable groups regarding access to employment, LGBTI+ individuals are now facing job and income losses. Moreover, the risk of discrimination in healthcare is higher for LGBTI+ individuals. To make matters worse, hate speech targeting the LGBTI+ community in the pretext of Covid-19 is on the rise.

Dara(*) is an edjai, the local term in Khmer language to designate a street waste picker. In a country lacking a formal recycling system, he is one of the many thousands roaming the streets in search for aluminum cans or plastic bottles he can find to sell to collectors, composing the backbone of the recycling ecosystem.

A fluctuating economy, high unemployment, enormous violence against women and girls – what was already a difficult situation in Mexico has been made far worse by the coronavirus pandemic. Dawid Danilo Bartelt, Head of the Mexico City Office, describes the country’s approach to tackling coronavirus.

The debate over the data storage model of a coronavirus tracing app shows how the German government’s search for digital infection control tools became caught up between public health officials, privacy experts and the US tech industry.