Link to article:https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-provides-covid-19-humanitarian-and-remittance-relief-fund-to-africa
The UK is giving 7 million pounds to provide essential services and food assistance to households and migrants in southern Africa who were affected by COVID-19. Nearly 750,000 people will get this assistance. The region’s drought and the pandemic created a large food insecurity situation with 18 million people in southern Africa were at risk of hunger in December. With partners including UNICEF, International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), they will provide sanitation services, food security assistance, and gender-based violence protection measures. Communities in Lesotho, Eswatini, Madagascar, Namibia and South Africa will benefit from these services. The UK funds will also directly help hard hit areas in Madagascar by the drought with water, hygiene, and sanitation service and various drought resilience measures. An additional 15 pounds per month will be sent to households affected by the loss of remittances, since many southern African families live on remittances from a family member in South Africa.
This article displays the effects the pandemic has on a region that was also struggling with a large drought. It is important to see that not only is this pandemic causing health problems, but it is causing economic disparities that are putting southern African families in poverty and can affect people for generations. It is crucial for wealthy countries to provide aid to ones that are struggling in order to slow the spread of the pandemic, eliminate new variants, and protect the livelihoods of people affected by the economic crisis created by the pandemic. When people have COVID they cannot work, so the economies of these Sub-Saharan African countries will also be affected by the lack of workers in various industries.
The organizations such as UNICEF that are helping the communities in Africa that were affected by the pandemic are NGOs. This displays the importance of NGOs during emergencies that a country cant solve by themselves. Aid from organizations shows the emergence of other global actors, rather than just states, which seem to be rising in power. In addition, the idea that determines a country’s wealth, and therefore power, is geopolitics. Many of these African countries needing help is due to poor trade location and small economic opportunities which are factors of geopolitics, which determine power. Countries that have better economic opportunities must aid those that do not in this pandemic, because the pandemic is creating a depth of challenges exceeding sickness.