CORRECTED VERSION: Vaccine Famine & its Impact on African Economies

The Republic of Congo received just over 300,000 doses of the COVID vaccines through the COVAX Facility in August 2021. Credit: UNICEF/Aimable Twiringiyima

NEW YORK, Dec 21 2021 (IPS) – We are about to start a third year of living with COVID-19. The world’s humanity and solidarity are now at a further test – and yet implications of the absence of solidarity keep us all in the boat of mutations, lockdowns, quarantines and delayed SDGs – denied prosperity for all. 2021 has unearthed a new expression of global inequity: “vaccine nationalism” – itself competing with high with socioeconomic downturns, jobless growth, the climate crisis, and rising poverty.

Radical Relook at Drug Policies Puts Human Rights into Equation

A new analysis of global drug policies looks at how countries’ drug policies and implementation align with the UN principles of human rights, health and development. Credit: Michael Longmire/Unsplash

BRATISLAVA, Nov 9 2021 (IPS) – A “radically innovative” new analysis of global drug policies has laid bare the full impact repressive drug laws and their implementation have on millions of people worldwide, civil society groups behind its creation have said.

The inaugural Global Drug Policy Index (GDPI) , developed by the Harm Reduction Consortium (HRC) a collaboration of civil society groups ranks countries on their drug policies agai…