George Floyd murder, GAVI, Aid sector recruitment trends, and more

+ Save the date! workshops on Adaptive management

CID in partnership with MFAT will be holding two online training seminars on Adaptive Management, as we all face the challenges of adapting programmes and ways of working during COVID-19.

We'll cover:

• Theory - what is adaptive management and how does it work?
• Practice  - implementation and what it means for work with partners
• MFAT's approach, research and practice
• Aligning it with monitoring & evaluation, and locally-driven approaches
• Latest international research and thinking  

+ Africa reacts to George Floyd murder & protests

Prominent African journalists and civil society activists give their perspectives on the American protests, at the Centre for Strategic & International Studies.

Key points:

• Decreased legitimacy of the United States in condemning human rights violations in African countries.
• Inseparable ties between the U.S. civil rights movement and anti-colonialism movements in Africa.
• The rise of authoritarianism across the globe, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Ironically, George Floyd died on Africa Day....On Africa Day, we Africans come together with messages of hope, reinforcing our dreams of progress, peace, and freedom. We celebrate the end of colonialism and segregation.....We have been looking up to the U.S. as the older brother that knows it all. The example of democracy, of freedom. The United States has been the nation with the power to call out others on human rights, on freedom of speech, on religious freedom," writes Angolan journalist, Mayra de Lassalette.

"The fact that this is happening in the United States is a tragedy unto itself because the United States used to be a beacon of what was right and just," writes Malawi journalist, Idris Mohammed

Here is the African Union statement on the murder of George Floyd.

 

+ Virus threats in urban Africa

The Global South is no longer a rural space.

Migration to urban areas has increased exponentially in the last 20 years. Today more than 4.2 billion people worldwide live in cities.

In Africa, over half the population (excluding in North Africa) live in overcrowded informal settlements, and this represents a huge challenge for mitigating the effects of a pandemic, writes Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director of UN‐Habitat on OECD Development Matters.

There are now more than 150,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus across Africa, in all 54 countries, with South Africa and Egypt the worst affected, and informal settlements are fertile soil for the pandemic.

'Other preventative measures are equally challenging. Only a third of households in Africa have access to basic handwashing facilities and in many informal settlements piped water is a luxury. And as a large majority of the workforce is informally employed, and most cannot work from home, they still need to use public transport and cannot follow social distancing', says Ms Sharif.

'There is a wider need to leverage community-driven initiatives...Community-based organisations and non-profits can help in multiple ways, for instance, Kenya is working with NGOs and community organizations to implement facilities for mapping, mask making and handwashing'.

'The response to COVID-19 in informal settlements provides an opportunity to rethink urban planning and find innovative sustainable ways to eradicate slums'.
 

+ How to talk to the public about COVID

How to we talk to the public about aid and development in the COVID environment?

New research from the Development Engagement Lab (DEL) in the UK sheds light on the attitudes of the British public, according to BOND this week.

The good news:

• 79% said that global cooperation is now “more important than ever”.
• Two-thirds of the British public said they would “feel safer” as part of a coordinated, global response to the pandemic.

• Support for increases in aid has declined, with only 38% agreeing they would increase or maintain aid budgets (down from 42% earlier in the year).

• Collective action - eg. 79% support “I want our government to work with other governments to ensure scientists have the funding they need to find the treatments and vaccines that can help end this crisis.” 
• “The only way to stop the coronavirus crisis is to test, treat and prevent future infections with a vaccine − we need to support the world's scientists to do that.”
• “We need a global response to a global problem. We're all in this together.”
• “It is in everyone's interest to stop the virus from spreading unchecked, destroying lives and economies, and continuing to circle around the world.”

+ New data: will charities survive COVID?

A 20% drop in revenue for charities in Australia would be devastating, according to new research from Social Ventures Australia and the Centre for Social Impact.

Without transitional support, more than 200,000 jobs could be lost among Australian charities.
 
The report includes six recommendations for governments to ensure the resilience and viability of the charity sector, including 

• One-off Charities Transformation Fund to help organisations transition to the ‘new normal’ including operating online, restructuring etc 

Will Australian charities be COVID-19 casualties or partners in recovery? A financial health check is available here.
 
In New Zealand  'Health of the Sector' study  - in progress now - will help to identify the impact of COVID on CID members, and ways forward to support the sustainability and impact of the sector. We expect to complete the study by the beginning of July.

+ Devex report on recruitment trends in the Aid sector

A new Devex report on recruitment and the latest hiring trends of our mission-driven sector, is downloadable for free, here.

Building on online survey data that Devex has been collecting since 2015, the report offers an overview of the latest trends across the market, explores the skills necessary to stay competitive in the future and identifies best practices to find jobs and candidates.

Highlights:

• Most new development hires will continue to be located in Africa and consist of project managers
• Employers say there is a skills shortage among job applicants (eg technical skills, data collection, impact measurement and evaluation skills are in short supply)
• For job seekers, the biggest challenge is the lack of a network or connections
• Development professionals need to be lifelong learners

+ GAVI  - getting 'The People's Vaccine' 

The New Zealand government has announced additional support for Gavi, the international 'Vaccine Alliance'. The New Zealand focus will be on making sure that the Pacific gets access to COVID vaccines when developed.

GAVI is aiming to raise $7.4 billion in its pledging conference, hosted on Zoom this week.  While the summit will push a "people's vaccine" for COVID-19, the focus is on reaching an additional 300 million children with vaccinations in the next five years. 

Useful reads from Devex this week: 

• Civil society organizations are the glue that holds the COVID-19 response together. And, once we have a vaccine, CSOs will be essential in distributing it around the world, writes Anuradha Gupta, Gavi's deputy CEO. 
• As fear mounts about manufacturers prioritizing sales to the highest bidders, important questions need to be answered before any fund is launched. Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy adviser at Médecins Sans Frontières' Access Campaign, outlines what should be done differently. 
• Making a vaccine accessible: A glossary of terms. From patents to pooling, Devex explains the key terms in the jargon-heavy debate over vaccine access.

+ Self-care manual for aid workers

The risk of emotional and physical exhaustion is high for those doing humanitarian and development work.

We work in stressful environments, and practitioners often end up exhausted.

Aid workers are highly prone to burnout, compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma or other caregiving related mental health issues. Self-care is an essential, yet often neglected.

Care International has created 'Self-care: A Manual for Humanitarian Aid & Development Workers' a practical, fun and user-friendly manual to encourage a self-care culture in your work, at your home or anywhere you are.
 

+ Attacks against COVID-19 Health-Workers

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross said it has recorded 208 COVID-19-related attacks against health workers and installations in 13 countries since March, a striking contrast to the cheers and clapping in gratitude for their work in many nations.

Health workers are being attacked and abused and health systems are being targeted at a time when they are most needed said Red Cross's Peter Maurer.

“The COVID-19 crisis is fast threatening to become a protection crisis," he told the U.N. Security Council.

The ICRC compiled data from 13 countries in the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, the Americas and Africa where it operates, and it’s “likely the actual numbers are much higher than what we calculated.”
 

+ Freedom of speech threat in Philippines

ABS-CBN, the largest television network in the Philippines, was ordered to cease operations after President Rodrigo Duterte's allies in Congress refused to renew the station's 25-year licence, reports Aljazeera.
 
Aljazeera is now going to the Supreme Court to fight the closure. 

An estimated 11,000 employees of the company risk losing their jobs if the TV station isn't allowed to open soon. 

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliates across Asia-Pacific called on the Philippine government to urgently restore operations at ABS-CBN in a series of letters to the country’s ambassadors.

CID member UnionAID is running a campaign to support the station and its staff in it legal bid to re-open. 

If you want more information on the campaign, contact Mike Naylor at UnionAID michael@unionaid.org.nz
 

+ Summary of government support for charities, JB Were 

Here is a complete summary of all the support for charities available from the government. Not all of this is applicable to aid charities, but it gives you a one-stop-shop to look at what's there.
 

+ Election debate for community sector

Community organisations are asking Members of Parliament and political party members to spell out their plans for the community and voluntary sector in the lead-up to New Zealand’s general election in September.

“The whole country is working out what stays the same and what needs to change following the immediate crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that’s true of community and voluntary organisations too," says Rochelle Stewart-Allen, General Manager of Hui E! Community Aotearoa.
 

• The online discussion  -  4pm to 5.30pm this Wednesday 10 June
• Facilitated by broadcaster Rawdon Christie
• Participants -  Poto Williams (Labour), Jan Logie (Greens), Tracey Martin (NZ First), Alfred Ngaro (National), Brooke van Velden (Act) and Geoff Simmons (TOP). 

Registration is free and available here.
 
The webinar is hosted by Hui E! Community Aotearoa, ComVoices, Sue Barker Charities Law and Trust Democracy, with support from the Todd Foundation.

+ 'Rebuild fairly' - a global challenge

The ambition to build back better has been central to every disaster recovery plan since the Indonesia tsunami in 2004, but lacks pragmatism, and, 'needs to be made explicit and transparent as countries slowly re-emerge from their COVID-19 cocoons', writes Professor Ilan Noy from Victoria University of Wellington, on The Conversation.

"The Asian Development Bank attempted last year to define build-back-better aspirations more precisely and concretely. The bank described four criteria: build back safer, build back faster, build back potential and build back fairer."

The most challenging issue, according to Noy, is 'fairness'.

COVID-19, as a health and economic crisis, is impacting most the poorest households in rich countries, and the poorest countries whose health systems were not prepared for a pandemic, and whose economies will strongly suffer from the lockdowns and from the collapse of international tourism and the automation of supply chains, for example. Historically, epidemics lead to more income inequality.

"Despite the pressure to “open up” the economy, recovery won’t progress without a lasting solution to the widespread presence of the virus' and framing the rebuild around reducing inequalities might be politically unpalatable during a global crisis."

"Without global empathy and better global leadership, the poorest countries and poorest people will only be made poorer by this invisible enemy", says Noy.

+ Covid-19 and financing projections for developing countries

Global poverty is expected to rise by tens of millions of people at least, at the same time as the global economy shrinks.

The pandemic will impact all forms of finance and the level of resources available in developing countries – domestic and international, public and private.
 
This briefing unpacks the projections for financing for developing countries over the next 2 years.
 
It looks at what ‘building back better’ means when it comes to improving the financing system for sustainable development, and where the main areas for change need to be if we are to seize this moment to make more fundamental changes that could have a transformative effect in the longer term.