Devex Pro Weekender: ‘Hostage’ aid workers, and African anger in Paris

You would think that a high-profile initiative to boost pharmaceutical manufacturing on the African continent would be launched on, well, the African continent — instead of, say, the City of Light? Au contraire mon frère! Paris will host the June 20 launch of Gavi’s African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, which will make up to $1 billion available over 10 years to help the continent achieve vaccine sovereignty. The choice of locale runs counter to calls from the global south to stop holding major events in the global north, both for logistical reasons — expenses, visa denials — and because of the dubious optics of former colonizers sitting around in their hometown, talking about what’s best for lower-income countries, whose riches they once plundered. Never one to shy away from controversy, Githinji Gitahi, the CEO of Amref Health Africa, used his platform at the Devex CheckUp @ WHA77 summit in Geneva to decry the Paris launch as an example of how hard it is for the global north to cede power to local players. Amref even issued a press release on the kerfuffle in which Gitahi said that “Africa is striving to enhance its vaccine manufacturing capabilities, and hosting the launch on African soil would be a powerful symbol of the continent’s ownership and leadership in the initiative.” But Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, defended the decision, telling Africans to “respect partnerships” in an interview with the Nation. My colleague Sara Jerving also tells me that an Africa CDC spokesperson told reporters on WhatsApp that while the launch is still happening in Paris, a subsequent one in Africa in the weeks following that launch is in the works. “More details will be communicated,” they said. Also in today’s edition: Paris redeems itself, a campaign of fear in Yemen, and women may close the gender gap by … 2158!? Bits and pieces Tale of two cities: Paris may have taken a beating from Gitahi, but don’t knock the French too hard (after all, they’ve already been bruised by their recent political whiplash). The Paris Peace Forum seems to be heeding pleas to hold global south-related events in the actual global south, with its most recent iteration being held in Morocco last week. The theme of the spring meeting, hosted on the campus of University Mohammed VI Polytechnic, centered around the shared North-South objective of “fair transitions.” Focal points included climate finance, critical minerals, food security in Africa, malnutrition, and ensuring fair benefit-sharing in global health. Raj Kumar, our President and Editor-in-Chief, was on the ground and tells us the location of the forum in many ways crystallizes Africa’s ambitions. The university, situated about an hour outside Marrakech, has ambitions to be at the heart of higher education in Africa, Raj said on X. “There’s some 6,000 students here, 700 Ph.D.s, 30 African countries represented among the student body, 90% of the students are here on scholarship, and they’re really leaning into this idea of tech and innovation to drive development on the continent of Africa,” he wrote. Read: Platform to transform African agriculture launches at Paris Peace Forum Blackmail and geopolitics: The detention of 13 Yemeni U.N. aid workers by Houthi rebels, who accused the workers of acting as part of a U.S.-Israeli spy ring, heralds a worrying trend. My colleague Colum Lynch writes that the detentions are part of a broader reported sweep of some 50 Yemeni employees of U.N. agencies, diplomatic missions, private companies, and international and nongovernmental organizations. U.N. officials worry the dragnet is part of an intimidation campaign directed at thousands of local workers, fueling widespread panic and fear. It is also viewed as a bid to impose greater control over the aid communities’ distribution of billions of dollars in foreign assistance to Yemen, the lowest-income country in the Middle East. “The humanitarian community is seeing it as a blackmail/hostage taking situation,” said a U.N. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. “All national staff are understandably terrified.” “This looks like a purge,” said a second U.N. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. “They most likely want to gain leverage to control the U.N. agencies.” Meanwhile, over at the U.N. Security Council, the aid workers have become ensnared in a geopolitical haymaker that pitted China and Russia against the United States and scores of other mostly Western nations. Beijing and Moscow blocked a bid by the U.K. to adopt a statement demanding the release of the detainees. While Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya expressed “alarm” over the detentions, he also lent credence to the possibility that U.N. workers may have behaved inappropriately. He also implied that the U.N. would be applying a “double standard” in trying to impose demands on the Houthis while letting Israel off the hook for a military campaign that has resulted in the death of more than 200 aid workers. Read: 'Blackmail/hostage' dragnet ensnares UN aid workers in Yemen Labor pains: On Monday, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board is scheduled to begin its hearing in the dispute between the International Foundation for Electoral Systems — a U.S.-based democracy NGO — and a newly formed staff union that has alleged unfair labor practices by the organization's leadership. The union has filed multiple complaints against IFES and its CEO, longtime United Nations leader Anthony Banbury. A flashpoint in the deteriorating relationship between the union and management was the March 2023 firing of a former employee named Gina Chirillo, which IFES’ representatives say was in response to her violation of a social media policy, but which the union alleges was retribution for her role as a prominent labor organizer. Read: The labor fight roiling a pro-democracy organization ✉️ Do you have insights into any of this week’s bits and pieces? Let me know by replying to this email. Stat of the week 134 years --— That’s how long it will take for the world to achieve full gender parity at the current rate of progress — equivalent to five generations. The dour assessment came from the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2024, published on June 12, which revealed that the world has closed 68.5% of the gender gap. That’s at least something to cheer, right? Not so much when you consider that globally, the gender gap only closed by a measly 0.1 percentage points since last year. “We cannot wait until 2158 for parity,” said Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the World Economic Forum, in a press release. “The time for decisive action is now.” Moving on Anacláudia Marinheiro Centeno Rossbach of Brazil was appointed the new executive director of UN-Habitat following her election by the U.N. General Assembly on June 7. José Luis Castro was appointed director-general special envoy for chronic respiratory diseases at the World Health Organization. Benjamin des Gachons is joining the Eleanor Crook Foundation as senior director of EMEA advocacy. He will help develop and execute advocacy strategies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to drive attention and action to end malnutrition. Celine Mias is taking up a new position as European Union director at the Danish Refugee Council after 11 years of working at CARE International. Justice Nonvignon is leaving Africa CDC after three years as foundation head of the Health Economics and Financing Division. Robert Rosen is stepping down from his role as head of philanthropic partnerships at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — where he’s worked for over 16 years — at the end of June. There have been several appointments at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, including: • David Sidwell as board member and chair of the Audit and Finance Committee, replacing Naguib Kheraj and appointed to the Market-Sensitive Decisions Committee and the Investment Committee. • Awa Marie Coll-Seck as a board member and member of the Programme and Policy Committee. • Karen Sorenson as a member of the Audit and Finance Committee and the Investment Committee. • Onei Uetela as a member of the Evaluation Advisory Committee. Christopher Marks, managing director at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Bank, will serve as board chair of the Green Guarantee Company, or GGC, the world’s first climate-focused guarantor, which recently took a key step toward becoming fully operational by announcing a new board of directors. Did we miss one? Let us know at devexpro@devex.com. Hot jobs Ready to take your career to the next level? Devex Talent Solutions is currently seeking applicants for high-level positions. Explore them below — or discover even more on our job board. • Senior Financial Engineering Specialist and Global Lead Procurement Officer, Islamic Development Bank, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. • Information Technology Officer (Enterprise Data) at the Caribbean Development Bank, in St. Michael, Barbados. Find out more about Devex Talent Solutions’ executive search experience. In memoriam Christophe Deloire, head of Reporters Without Borders, died on June 8 at the age of 53 after a battle with cancer. “Christophe Deloire was a tireless defender, on every continent, of the freedom, independence and pluralism of journalism, in a context of information chaos,” the organization said in a statement. “Journalism was his life’s struggle, which he fought with unshakeable conviction.” Up next The Forecasting Healthy Futures Global Summit will be held June 18-20 in Baku, Azerbaijan — also the site of the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference, so this capital city is definitely earning a place on the global calendar. This summit is designed to provide a high-level view of climate change and its impact on health, as well as technical innovations in fields related to health, an executive take on climate financing, and communications and advocacy to advance investment in next-generation solutions. The 54th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank will take place June 17-20 in Ottawa, Canada, framed around the theme of “Partnerships for Resilient Prosperity.” As faithful Weekender readers may remember, there was a fracas when bank President Hyginus “Gene” Leon was allegedly put on administrative leave back in January, after complaints were raised through the bank’s whistleblower mechanism. Word is he tendered his resignation in April, shortly before an independent investigation substantiated most of the allegations, the nature of which remains unclear. Leon is still listed as the bank’s president on its website. According to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity, the matter will be discussed during the meeting. Leon will not be attending and his duties will be filled by Acting President Isaac Solomon. The co-chairs of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response will release a report next week on the state of global pandemic preparedness and response. In 2021, the panel identified shortcomings and failures in the COVID-19 response. But a progress report in 2022 found that many of the reforms they proposed had not been fully implemented.