Rwanda — All Publications — Chidi Oguamanam

Covid-19 Digital Health Innovations: The African Context

“Dealing with health and economic challenges of Covid-19 has made one point abundantly clear for African countries – that we need broadband, faster, cheaper and expanded to the last mile of the populations”. This observation credited to UN Under Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, Ms. Vera Songwe has never rung truer than in these unprecedented times. Leveraging technology to assist African countries in the fight against Covid-19 is imperative to finding effective solutions for containing the virus in an economically feasible manner for Africa, taking into consideration the continent’s technological infrastructure.

Public Health, Africa, and COVID-19

As an African and a Canadian, I inhabit an observatory. I am a resident in two worlds of blunt contrasts. On a good note, daily at every turn, those contrasts offer privileged lessons on the richness and complexity of the human experience, of our world. In this observatory, it is irresistible not to have a geopolitical perspective on the dynamic of Africa’s relationship with the global south. And since the formal declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 by WHO’s Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the reality of that stark contrast has never been more evident.

African Leaders' Blackmail of the International Criminal Court

In the last decade, warlordism has been on the decline in Africa. But terrorism and other forms of political combustion appear to be on the rise. Recent and ongoing disturbances across the continent are flashpoints of both Africa's political vulnerability and the continent's political renewal. As Africa engages its current positive, albeit, controversial economic transition, the tail of its political contradictions within a hypocritical world order continues to wag the continent.

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