Guest post by Dr. Olive Kobusingye In managing the pandemic, Uganda seems to have checked many of the right boxes so far. Schools were closed, large gatherings banned, and some form of physical distancing adopted before Uganda registered its first case of COVID 19. The sole international airport was closed on March 23, 2020, a day after the first case

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Time to pick the overall winner in our Corona Cartoon Comp. After the first 350 votes in last Friday’s competition and Pablo Suarez’ great post on the role of humour in social change, we have clear winners in the 3 categories (Lockdown/Working From Home; Injustice and Politics; Random Funny). So now, let’s make them slug it out for Best in

Not much fun on today’s links – if that’s what you’re looking for, head to Friday’s Corona-Cartoon competition, (example, right), where voting is still going strong How to feed your family during Zimbabwe’s lockdown Lockdown must be getting to me. I’m starting to agree with Piers Morgan What’s going on in Africa? According to the FT, ‘Low Covid-19 death toll

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Pablo Suarez discusses the role of humour in driving change, and introduces today’s Corona-cartoon Competition Why cartoons in the midst of a pandemic? Humor keeps us honest. It helps bridge the gap between what is and what could be. The argument is simple: by overlooking reality, people and organizations often fail to anticipate and address risks, and humor helps to

It’s Friday and weeks in lockdown can be loooong. Time for some fun. We had a lot of it with last month’s Coronavision Song Contest (Bobi Wine just about won that one, thanks to all his Ugandan fans), so to accompany Pablo Suarez’ piece today on the use of humour, it’s time for …[drum roll]… the Corona-Cartoon Competition! Here’s a

Interface Journal are putting together brilliant compilations of readings by/on social movements and how they are dealing with the current Coronavirus pandemic. We will be republishing these compilations as they are rolled out, to join efforts in amplifying the voices of activists and those organizing communities through the crisis. They have a call for submissions below, please write in! And

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Guest post by Yogesh Ghore and Farouk Jiwa, of the Coady International Institute For the last 60 years the Coady Institute has been working with community leaders and organisations supporting leadership and knowledge building at the grassroots level. Many of our 9,000 graduates from over 133 countries, and partners across the world, are on the frontlines in the fight against

The responses to yesterday’s post were so enthusiastic that I’ve put together a second instalment and included a couple of links at the end to Indian authors. Seems like it would be a useful exercise to keep publishing these kinds of syntheses as the crisis evolves, so if you see particularly perceptive or striking analyses from Africa, Latin America or

Although Covid’s impact in poor countries is starting to look pretty terrifying (as, often, is the political response), the debates that I see are still being framed largely in Northern terms of self-isolation, PPE and all the rest. And often it’s advice from well-meaning northerners about how Delhi, Nairobi or Cape Town should be responding. In search of other views,