U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris had big shoes to fill at the U.N.’s Generation Equality Forum on Wednesday. The summit is seen as a successor to the landmark 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, where Hillary Clinton forced the issue of gender equality as a human right.
This is a preview of Newswire
Sign up to this newsletter for an inside look at the biggest stories in global development, in your inbox daily.
In her speech, Harris sought to establish a similar link between gender equality and the Biden administration’s overarching international concern: defending global democracy.
“Around the world, democracy is in peril” with the rise of strongmen in global leadership and increase in human rights abuses, Harris said, adding that, “gender equality strengthens democracy.”
My colleague Stephanie Beasley has been keeping tabs on the more than $40 billion in new commitments UN Women says have been made at the forum — “the largest-ever collective infusion of resources for global gender equality.”
Some of the most noteworthy:
• Harris said the Biden administration is requesting funds to double PEPFAR’s DREAMS partnership. The U.S. Congress will have to agree.
• They will also update the 2016 U.S. Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence Globally.
• The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $2.1 billion to promote gender equality globally over five years — one of the foundation’s largest single commitments to date, Stephanie reports. And the Ford Foundation has pledged $420 million.
Read: Harris outlines US plan to strengthen gender equality at UN event
Supply and demand
World Bank President David Malpass says demand for COVID-19 vaccines from lower-income countries is “surging.” As a result, Malpass said Wednesday that the bank will increase its funding for the global vaccine rollout from $12 billion to $20 billion over the next 18 months.
Shabtai Gold reports that the bank’s private sector arm, along with U.S., German, and French development finance agencies, announced a €600 million ($711 million) funding package for Aspen Pharmacare, Africa’s largest pharmaceutical company, aimed at boosting vaccine manufacturing.
USAID Administrator Samantha Power, who sits on the U.S. Development Finance Corp.’s board of directors, says the investment will allow the manufacturer to produce more than 500 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by the end of 2022.
Read: World Bank deal to finance COVID-19 vaccine production in Africa
+ Sign up to receive today’s edition of CheckUp, where we look at what the Covishield vaccine’s exclusion from the EU vaccine passport means, and more global health news.
Cutting the cord
The U.K. development community has been through a lot in recent months … or years. With relations between development NGOs and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office at an all-time low, what should organizations learn from all this?
“Maybe one of the lessons is we became overreliant on that source of funding as a U.K. sector,” said Tim Boyes-Watson, global director of insights and influence at Humentum.
Devex Pro: UK NGOs want 'a new settlement' with government
Contingency plans
In April, climate activist Greta Thunberg called for the next international climate change summit — COP 26, planned for Glasgow in November — to be postponed until global COVID-19 vaccination rates are high enough to allow full participation.
With vaccination rates in many parts of the world still in the low-single digits, COP 26 organizers are now working with the U.N. to figure out how they can send doses to delegates and other prospective attendees in advance. Vaccination will not be mandatory, but is “strongly recommended.”
While this approach might address some of the acute logistical challenges for this climate summit, as my colleague Will Worley observes, it also highlights the failure of the international community to deliver in advance of an event whose success or failure will depend on trust and equity.
Stark relief
“Sudan’s debt will go from about $56.6 billion to about $6 billion at the completion point.”
— Carol Baker, IMF mission chief for SudanIMF’s executive board announced that Sudan has passed the “decision point” under IMF and World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative. That means it can now be eligible for IMF loans and foreign assistance, Shabtai Gold reports.
Think globally
Patrick Gaspard, the former head of the Open Society Foundations, has a new and highly-influential role as president and CEO at the Center for American Progress.
John Podesta, the policy think tank’s founder, tells Politico Gaspard’s “experience in global philanthropy also fits where we see some of the challenges facing the United States growing around the globe, particularly the growth of right-wing authoritarianism.”
In other news
The combined effects of U.N. sanctions, pandemic border closures, and climate disasters have worsened food insecurity in North Korea, where a repeat of the 1990 famine looms. [Al Jazeera]
Russia will only discuss extending the mandate of the last remaining border opening into northern Syria, according to its envoy, and not the possibility of a second border crossing. [Reuters]
Aid to small island nations should be based on vulnerability index instead of GDP, researchers suggest. [The Guardian]
Sign up to Newswire for an inside look at the biggest stories in global development.
About the author
Michael Igoe@AlterIgoe
Michael Igoe is a Senior Reporter with Devex, based in Washington, D.C. He covers U.S. foreign aid, global health, climate change, and development finance. Prior to joining Devex, Michael researched water management and climate change adaptation in post-Soviet Central Asia, where he also wrote for EurasiaNet. Michael earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College, where he majored in Russian, and his master’s degree from the University of Montana, where he studied international conservation and development.
