Africa was predicted to be hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, given its poor health systems. However, this outcome has not been the case. Despite the U.S. being the highest spender on health care globally, COVID-19 has shown that its primary care infrastructure is in much need of strengthening. But we should not mistake COVID-19 as the biggest pandemic of our time. If anything, it is only a dry run, with other epidemics brewing on the horizon. Therefore, if the global community is serious about epidemic preparedness, global health security, and protecting the most vulnerable, we need to redesign health systems for resilience. Africa’s lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as from concurrent outbreaks of cholera, Ebola virus disease, yellow fever, and chikungunya, could provide a roadmap.

Eleven months have passed since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). As we rang in the new year, the world surpassed two million deaths due to COVID-19. While it is encouraging that 77 countries have distributed 168 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, only a small fraction of these are in low-income countries. Vaccinations may not be widely distributed in most of sub-Saharan Africa until 2022-2023. Furthermore, the new COVID-19 variant recently discovered in South Africa is estimated to be 50 percent more contagious, underscoring the need for a collaborative international response.

“How do we incorporate more men into the work that we’re doing?” said Dominick Shattuck, Director of Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning for Breakthrough ACTION at Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP), at a recent event hosted by the MenEngage Alliance. The event focused on interventions to meaningfully engage men and boys in health programming, and how “life course theory” can help determine the best timing for male engagement.

Early predictions about COVID-19’s impacts on Africa suggested that the continent would be a disaster zone marked by weak medical systems collapsing under strain and undemocratic states failing to provide social services to destitute populations. These predictions did not come to pass. Instead, many countries across the continent stepped up early on to join the world in curtailing the spread of COVID-19. The second order effects of the virus have been significant, however. Despite the low numbers of infections and deaths, lockdowns and the decline of a large percentage of informal trade and commerce in Sub-Saharan Africa have sent the region’s economy into recession, with increased inflation rates, widespread unemployment, and increased food insecurity. It’s within this context that collaboration (internationally and within the continent, between governments, the private sector, and local communities) to protect the environment—and by extension enhance livelihoods, promote sustainable development, and achieve enduring peace—has taken new forms.

“One hundred thirty-seven women are killed by a family member every day,” said Beth Schlachter, Executive Director of Family Planning 2020. “That’s a staggering statistic.” She spoke at a recent Wilson Center event about gender-based violence (GBV) in conflict and humanitarian settings in partnership with CARE, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Save the Children, and the Women’s Refugee Commission. The event was a part of a Wilson Center series recognizing the United Nation’s “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence” and commemorated our friend and colleague, Jennifer Schlecht.

When Mwanahamisi Abdallah’s mother announced plans to marry her off to a stranger, the 14-year-old Tanzanian girl burst into tears. She had no desire to marry—especially after learning the man already had three wives. Remembering advice from a teacher, she phoned authorities to intervene. They blocked the wedding and eventually delivered Mwanahamisi from her village in southeastern Lindi region to a girls’ shelter in Dar es Salaam.

The significance of the Biden-Harris administration for the world’s women and girls cannot be overstated. The current status of women and girls is grim. The COVID-19 pandemic and four years of dangerous policies designed to strip women and girls of their reproductive and economic autonomy and punish them—first for their biology, and second for their gender—have slowed and even reversed decades of progress toward gender equity. Systemic racism and policies meant to further exclude and disenfranchise minority communities have targeted women of color with tragic results.