Archives for August 2020

How the World Will Get a COVID-19 Vaccine (Part 2)

Image credit: CEPI

When a COVID-19 Vaccine is available, most of the world will have access to it thanks to a unique platform for international cooperation called The COVAX Facility. 

The COVAX Facility is a platform for pooled investments in the development, manufacture and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine. At time of recording, 172 countries have entered into an initial agreement with COVAX, representing about 70% of the world’s population.  The goal of the COVAX Facility is to provide 2 billion doses of a vaccine to cover 20% of the population of all participating countries by the end of 2021.  

 GAVI–The Vaccine Alliance administers COVAX and on the line with me today to explain how COVAX works is the Managing Director for Country Programs at GAVI Thabani Maphosa

This episode is part two of a series examining how the COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to new forms of international cooperation to accelerate the end of the pandemic. Part one, released last week is my interview with the CEO of the Coalition for Pandemic Preparedness Innovations, CEPI, which has made early and ongoing investments in the development and manufacture of the vaccines.

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A Major Dam Project in Ethiopia Sparks a Fight Over Water With Egypt and Sudan

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam via Google Maps

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is a major hydroelectric project that promises to bring a much needed source of electricity to Ethiopia. But Egypt, which is downstream from Ethiopia, has been vehemently opposed to its construction. Egypt contends that the dam will restrict water flow and undermine its rights to the Nile waters. A major crisis is brewing.

On the line to explain dispute over the dam is Mekdelawit Messay, an independent water science researcher.

This episode is supported in part from a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to showcase African voices in peace and security issues. 

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How the World Will Get a COVID-19 Vaccine (Part 1)

Image credit: CEPI

When a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, chances are that the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) will have played a big role in bringing it into the world. 

CEPI is a partnership between governments, philanthropies and civil society organizations to support the development of vaccines and medicines for infectious diseases that have the potential to become pandemics. When COVID-19 emerged, CEPI made early investments in vaccine research and development and in building infrastructure around the mass production of a vaccine. 

In this episode, the CEO of CEPI Richard Hatchett explains how this platform for international cooperation is supporting the development of a COVID-19 Vaccine that will be made available worldwide as a public good. 

This episode is Part 1 of of a series examining how international cooperation and “vaccine multilateralism” is accelerating an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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Why COVID-19 is Not Raging in the Central African Republic

Photo: UN/MINUSCA – Francois Gombahi

The Central African Republic is near the bottom of every major economic or development indicator. It is also a country that is emerging from civil war. 

Despite these challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic is not raging out of control in CAR. This is in part due to the work of Dr. Marie Roseline Belizaire, a Haitian epidemiologist with the World Health Organization who was deployed to the Central African Republic early in the pandemic to assist the country with COVID -19 preparedness and response plan. 

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Understanding Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy Views — Is There a “Biden Doctrine?”

CUNY Foreign Policy Speech – New York, NY – July 11, 2019 Photo by Adam Schultz / Biden for President

Does Joe Biden have a foreign policy “Doctrine”? What would a Joe Biden administration’s foreign policy agenda look like? would look like? What drives Joe Biden’s views on foreign policy and international relations?

Other than Biden himself, Steve Clemons is the perfect person to discuss these questions. Steve Clemons is the Editor at Large for The Hill and has straddled journalism and insider foreign policy circles for years as a foreign policy analyst. 

If you have 25 minutes and want to learn what animates Joe Biden’s worldview, have a listen. https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/15615134/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/4f1ce8/

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Protests in Belarus Threaten to Take Down Europe’s Last Dictator

By Homoatrox – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,

Belarus is sometimes referred to as Europe’s last dictatorship. Since 1994 it has been ruled by just one man — Alexander Lukashenko, and he has ruled the country with an iron fist. 

In early August Belarusians went to the polls for presidential elections in which Lukashenko was declared the winner by a wide margin.  Belarusians, however, did not accept the results and took to the streets in record numbers. Government forces cracked down hard and the main opposition candidate was apparently detained and then removed from the country. 

Belarus is bordered on one side by Russia and the other by the European Union. The fate of Lukashenko is of profound importance to Russia and Europe — and increasingly the United States. 

On the line to provide some context for understanding these recent events in Belarus is Stephen Nix. He is the regional director for Eurasia at the International Republican Institute and a longtime policy hand focusing on former Soviet Republics 

If you have twenty minutes and want to understand the situation in Belarus right now, have a listen.

https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/15573317/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/4f1ce8/

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China Has A Plan to Reduce Household Air Pollution. But Who Benefits?

Kentaro IEMOTO Beijing Air Pollution… Sanlitun , Beijing, China Via Flickr CC License

China is the world’s largest consumer of coal, though in recent years the government has sought to reduce the country’s reliance on coal for energy. This includes transitioning away from coal for home heating. Dirty burning coal from home heating units is a major pollutant, particularly in northern China that both causes significant harm to individual health and also contributes to climate change.

In 2014, the government launched what is known as the household heating energy transition program. This program sought to replace household coal heating units with electricity, natural gas, or cleaner burning coal. Like many Chinese infrastructure projects it was a massive undertaking. It was also directed by the government, top down, and mandatory for homes that used dirty burning coal. 

My guest today, Lunyu Xie is Associate Professor at the School of Applied Economics , Renmin University of China. She conducted a unique cost-benefit study of this program that analyzed the effectiveness of the household heating energy transition program.  What makes Lunyu Xie’s study so significant is that she uses data from household surveys to see how this major government program may benefit end users–or not. 

Household energy from dirty burning sources is a major pollutant around the world–particularly in developing countries. The Chinese plan was able to enact a massive transition away from dirty coal, but is that model replicable elsewhere? We discuss this question and more in this episode of the podcast, produced in partnership with SETI

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Today’s episode is part of series of episodes that showcase the research and work of the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative. SETI is an interdisciplinary global collaborative that aims to foster research on energy access and energy transitions in low and middle-income countries. Currently, SETI is housed at Duke University, where it is led by Professors Subhrendu Pattanayak and Marc Jeuland. To learn more about SETI, follow them on Twitter @SETIenergy.

A Decaying Oil Tanker Off the Coast of Yemen Threatens to Unleash the World’s Worst-Ever Oil Spill

The story of a leaky oil tanker stranded off the coast of Yemen is, in part, the story of the country’s civil war. There are about a million gallons of oil stored in this tanker, which has not been operational since 2015. That is when Yemen’s civil war escalated into an international conflict pitting Houthi rebels who overthrew the government against an international coalition lead by Saudi Arabia. Now, that tanker threatens to unleash a massive oil spill that would devastate the region.

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8 Global Catastrophic Risks That Threaten Humanity — And What to Do About them

There is a certain category of disaster, whether manmade or natural, that poses an existential threat to humanity.  These are called global catastrophic risks. Some of these are fairly obvious, like nuclear war, and some may seem more the realm of science fiction like an asteroid impact. 

My guest today, Jens Orback is the CEO of the Global Challenges Foundation, a Sweden based group that is seeking to prevent these catastrophes through enhanced international cooperation. 

What binds each of these risks is not only their potential to destroy humanity, but also that they can be mitigated through stronger international cooperation and global governance.

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