A climate change protest in Edinburgh. Scotland is the only country with dedicated financial support for a climate justice fund
© JEFF J MITCHELL/GETTY IMAGES
The ongoing response to the Covid- 19 pandemic internationally has proven that global co-operation is key, not only in battling the outbreak domestically, but in our approach to delivering development abroad.
Failure to bring the international community together to provide proper and urgent assistance to the developing world will come back to bite us. While we can see infection rates beginning to plateau or fall in the western world, experts predict that Covid-19 infections will not peak in developing nations until July. As UN Secretary General António Guterres has warned, there is a very real risk that without solidarity with developing nations, the virus could mutate unchecked and rebound in a second, deadlier wave. This is worrying especially for countries currently in conflict, such as Yemen, Syria or South Sudan, where in all three it is thought that around half the healthcare facilities are partially or fully destroyed.