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NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
Showing posts from category South Africa.
  • Dr. Raj Panjabi on the Importance of Community-Based Health Systems in Pandemic Response

    ›
    Africa in Transition  //  Friday Podcasts  //  October 30, 2020  //  By Matthew Gallagher

    Panjabi Podcast Thumbnail (1)If there’s anything about responding to an epidemic, it’s that speed matters, and so does investing in people closest to the problem, said Dr. Raj Panjabi, Assistant Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and CEO of Last Mile Health, in this week’s Friday Podcast. The latter, he said, is the root of resilience.

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  • In COVID’s Wake: How to Revive Urban Mass Transit

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    Covid-19  //  Guest Contributor  //  September 1, 2020  //  By Gretchen De Silva, Chris Upchurch & Gad Perry
    addis ababa market

    The COVID-19 pandemic could lead to the death of mass transit. Few victims of COVID-19 were infected aboard mass transit, according to recent research. Yet ridership on urban mass transport has fallen sharply during the pandemic. In some places, such as Wuhan, China, the government shut mass transport down. In other places, the public stayed away. For example, New York City’s Metro-North commuter line reported a 95 percent COVID-19-related decrease in riders. Bus systems, which often disproportionally serve poorer riders who cannot work from home, have seen marked but less extreme drops in ridership.  

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  • Using Big Data Analytics for Transboundary Water Management

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    Guest Contributor  //  Water Security for a Resilient World  //  July 28, 2020  //  By Clara Bocchino & Knowles Adkisson

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    Southern Africa has experienced drought-flood cycles for the past decade that strain the ability of any country to properly manage water resources. This dynamic is exacerbated by human drivers such as the heavy reliance of sectors such as mining and agriculture on groundwater and surface water, as well as subsistence agriculture in rural areas along rivers. These factors have progressively depleted natural freshwater systems and contributed to an accumulation of sediment in river systems. In a region where two or more countries share many of the groundwater and surface resources, water security cuts across the socioeconomic divide and is both a rural and urban issue. For example, the City of Cape Town had to heavily ration all water uses in 2017 and 2018, as its dams were drying up.

    New technology, however, brings new opportunities for improved water governance. In Southern Africa, university researchers and government agencies are joining with international development groups and the private sector to explore how big data analytics can improve the management of aquifers that are shared by two or more countries.

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  • The Covid-19 Crisis in Africa

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    Covid-19  //  On the Beat  //  April 16, 2020  //  By Wania Yad
    UNICEF Ethiopia PPE

    “African countries are facing a severe health crisis. As of this morning, there are 14,573 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 790 deaths in 52 out of 54 countries,” said Judd Devermont, director the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Africa Program, at an April 13th event on the impacts of Covid-19 in Africa. The World Health Organization has estimated a 5 percent drop in Africa’s GDP and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) believes that as many as 20 million jobs will be lost. There is also a political dimension to this crisis, as governments struggle to deliver services, provide safety and security, and allow people to continue livelihoods, said Judd.

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  • Cape Town’s Harrowing Journey to the Brink of Water Catastrophe

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    Guest Contributor  //  September 14, 2018  //  By Brett Walton
    2018-04-South-Africa-Cape-Town-BWalton-IMG_4939-Edit-2500

    The original version of this post by Brett Walton appeared on Circle of Blue. Travel funding for this story came from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
     

     This is what a water panic looks like in a major global city.

    People hoard water. They queue for hours, well into the night, to fill jugs at natural springs. Like mad Christmas shoppers, they clear supermarkets of bottled water. They descend on stockers before they can fill the shelves.

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  • The Next “Day Zero”: Water Scarcity and Political Instability Beyond Cape Town

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    Guest Contributor  //  March 22, 2018  //  By Nazia Hussain
    Karachi-Water

    Cape Town is running dry. But thanks to its sophisticated water management efforts, the city may ride out the crisis. However, other cities that lack these capacities are less likely to survive Day Zero. Especially in developing countries, where urban water services are often provided by informal or illegal actors, running out of water could have dangerous ripple effects for peace and security.

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  • Historic Drought Prompts Water Innovation in California – Can It Be a Model?

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    Guest Contributor  //  June 9, 2017  //  By Scott Houston
    Central-Valley

    Pray for rain. Mega-drought. Winter salmon run nearly extinguished. Sierra snowpack dismal. These were just some of the headlines in California newspapers over the last five years during a historic drought that elevated water security to the top of everyone’s minds.

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  • Chased by Drought, Rising Costs, and Clean Technology, India Pivots on Coal

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    Choke Point  //  April 10, 2017  //  By Keith Schneider
    Malhotra1

    The first in a series of reports by Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center on the global implications of water, energy, and food challenges in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

    VILAMBUR, India – The mammoth coal-fired Cheyyur electrical station was first imagined by bankers at India’s Power Finance Corporation and senior engineers across town at the Central Electric Authority. That was in 2005, when the country was rich in fossil fuel resources and desperate for electric power. Though India mined more coal than almost any other country, endemic blackouts and brownouts enfeebled its economic prospects.

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