Letters | What needs to happen for 2022 to be a year of hope for the world

Hope in the new year depends on conquering Covid-19 through vaccination, managing climate change, spurring economic growth and reducing disparities

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A boy receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the Discovery vaccination site in Sandton, Johannesburg, on December 15. Photo: TNS

Published: 12:30am, 1 Jan 2022

The United Nations has declared 2022 to be the Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture. However, 2022 should be celebrated as the Year of Hope in light of the Covid-19 outbreak of 202o-21.

The key priority for all nations in 2022 will be to continue the unrelenting fight against Covid-19 and its variants. Less than half of the global population has received two doses of the vaccine, with just 58 per cent having received at least one dose.

Until at least 80 per cent of the world is fully vaccinated, we will not be safe. Vaccination priority should go to African countries and other parts of the developing world, which have vaccinated only tiny percentages of their population.

A central challenge in vaccinating the entire world by the end of 2022 will be to convince anti-vaxxers and the vaccine-hesitant to get inoculated. US President Joe Biden will be pivotal to this. Despite the difficulties he and his party are facing, he must accelerate the fight against Covid-19 and galvanise the world economy.

The competition between the United States and China will continue. China will keep up its expansion by funding infrastructure projects, particularly in Asia and Africa.

02:34

Drought linked to climate change deepens suffering in Afghanistan

As India goes into election mode, it should focus on economic growth, job creation and infrastructure instead of religious divides. Afghanistan will continue to struggle to find the money needed to manage the country. Hopefully there will be no new conflicts.