London — Local response is delayed at the very time it needs to be a priority.
When Start Network launched its global COVID-19 fund on 2 April, we received a record number of alerts from our civil society members - 85 calls for rapid preparedness and response activities in 69 countries. Collectively, these alerts identified more than 60 million people in need of immediate assistance - people living on the Myanmar-Thailand border, where the regular flow of migrants is becoming a vector of the disease; people living in urban Haiti, where poor sanitation is driving up infection rates; or street children in Senegal who face starvation during lockdown, when they are unable to forage for food.
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