Events

The Policy Center for the New South recently partnered with the Atlantic Council Africa Center on a pair of reports exploring the evolving roles of both traditional and emerging external powers in Africa in the post-COVID era. In its report, Emerging Powers in Africa: Key Drivers, Differing Interests, and Future Perspectives, the PCNS outlines how emerging powers are muscling their way into African markets, crowding a region already beset with security challenges. The complementary Africa Center report, African Agency in the New Cold War: Traditional Power Competition in the Post-COVID-19 African Landscape, focuses on Africa’s traditional external powers breaking down the economic and security flash-points that a “new Cold War” could precipitate, while noting with optimism the significant room for African agency even in sensitive fields like Chinese debt and global tech competition. 

Covid-19 triggered the worst and most synchronized global recession in recorded history, albeit - on current evidence - a short-lived one. The global recession was reflected in a precipitous fall in world trade, which is now recovering. The backlash against trade and globalization long preceded the pandemic, but as a result of the economic hardship it causes, public opinion in many countries has soured even more against imports and outsourcing. Most evident is the drive towards reduced reliance on the importation of medicines and medical equipment, products which mainly originate in a small number of countries, led by China.

2020 Virtual MENA Think Tank Summit – Think Tanks & Civil Societies Program

The purposeful dissemination of misleading or outright false information by news media and foreign state actors constitutes an increasingly important factor in both the growing erosion of trust in national institutions and political polarization in many countries around the world. The danger that disinformation represents has been clearly demonstrated in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Live broadcast

The 2020 US elections have taken place amidst a highly polarized context, compounded by a devastating global health crisis, a far-reaching economic recession, and the mounting threat of populism worldwide, calling into question the limits of multilateral cooperation. 

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اكتسبت حملة الستة عشر يوماً العالمية لمناهضة العنف القائم على النوع الاجتماعي والتي أطلقها مركز القيادة العالمية للمرأة في معهده العالمي الأول للقيادة النسائية في عام 1991 قوة جذب في أكثر من 187 دولة بمشاركة أكثر من 6,000 منظمة. إذ أن العنف القائم على النوع الاجتماعي من المشاكل الواسعة انتشارا فيما يخص حقوق الإنسان الدولية والصحة العامة، لكن التدخلات لمنعه ومواجهته بطريقة مناسبة ومميزة وفعالة غير كافية في معظم بلدان العالم.

COVID-19 showed how unprepared the health systems are to address major pandemics. Except for China, South Korea and Japan, countries have struggled to deal with the pandemic. Lockdowns and quarantines have been incentivised as a strategy. However, many countries have struggled economically and found out that a weak economy leads to a weaker healthcare system.

2020 Virtual Africa Think Tank Summit – Think Tanks & Civil Societies Program