We stand at a very uncertain future for humanity
If the global coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic has shown us anything, it is that there is no them and us. The virus does not discriminate, and nature does not negotiate. That lethal combination does not bode well for our species. Currently, all indications point to the fact that millions of people across the world will be infected and that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, more will die.
Global Health: A Pressing Foreign Policy Issue of our Time
Recognition of the nexus between foreign policy and public health is not new; it has found episodic expression that tended to dissipate, only to re-emerge with time. This has been the case because traditional notions of advancing national interests through foreign policy have tended to be anchored around the fields of trade and defence, with health seen as part of so-called “low politics”. This has tended to underplay the foreign policy dimensions of health.
The impact of COVID-19 on peace operations in Africa
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted peace operations. In the short term, activities have been reduced to the most critical, rotations have been frozen and most staff are working remotely. Most of the missions have adapted remarkably well. However, even more changes are likely in the medium term, when the global economic recession that is expected to follow in the wake of the virus may force peace operations to contract drastically in size and scope.
Conflict Trends – Special Edition 2020
If there was ever a moment in the history of humanity that calls for the deepening of dialogue across different nations, generations, and cultures about a world that we want to see, the year 2020 is that moment. Instead of allowing the disruptions created by the emergence and spread of COVID-19 to weaken our collective resolve to find creative solutions to the challenges we commonly face, we ought to be inspired by the creativity, the innovations, and the resilience that ordinary people across the world have attempted to create.