IMF, World Bank must urgently help finance developing countries

‘Covid-19 has set back the uneven progress of recent decades, directly causing more than two million deaths. The slowdown, due to the pandemic and policy responses, has pushed hundreds of millions more into poverty, hunger and worse, also deepening many inequalities.’

Read here (IPS News, Mar 30, 2021)

The politics of stopping pandemics

‘As the world nervously watches the rollout of the various covid-19 vaccines and surveys the human and economic cost of the pandemic, this period of optimism is hard to imagine. Yet Hotez, a pediatrician and a specialist in tropical infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine who co-directs a vaccine-development center at the Texas Children’s Hospital, shows that pandemics had been rebounding well before the first covid-19 cases emerged in Wuhan. His book draws lessons from the field of tropical infectious diseases, and also from his international work as a science envoy—a position created jointly by the State Department and the White House—during Barack Obama’s Presidency. 

‘Hotez is perhaps uniquely positioned to expound a broad vision that marries science with geopolitics. (In the past year, he has been a prominent TV expert on the pandemic.) We learn not only about familiar scourges such as polio and diphtheria but also about a host of so-called neglected tropical diseases, including dengue, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, and Chagas. He melds an account of their biology with documentation of the social and political factors that enable them to spread, and passionately insists that we cannot prevent pandemics in isolation from wider global currents. He identifies a cluster of non-medical drivers of deadly outbreaks—war, political instability, human migration, poverty, urbanization, anti-science and nationalist sentiment, and climate change—and maintains that advances in biomedicine must be accompanied by concerted action on these geopolitical matters.’

Read here (The New Yorker, Mar 29, 2021)

Covid hollows out the middle class everywhere, pushing millions into poverty, new research finds

‘The COVID-19 pandemic has eroded living standards around the globe, shrinking the global middle class and swelling the number of people in poverty amid a historic collapse in economic activity.

‘Analysis from Pew Research Center found that the global economic recession brought on by the pandemic shrank the worldwide middle class by 54 million, and increased the number of people in poverty by 131 million.

‘The middle-class falloff was most evident in South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific, where the expansion seen over previous years came to a virtual halt. But it could have been worse: “The erosion in the middle class might have been deeper if not for the fact that China—which is home to more than one-third of the global middle class—evaded an economic contraction, even though growth there was slower than anticipated,” the Pew study said.’

Read here (Fortune, Mar 18, 2021)

Inside poverty: How we gave a voice to Asia’s poor during Covid-19

‘When COVID-19 struck in 2020, sending many Asian countries into lockdown, CNA’s Insight series zoomed in on its impact on the poor - with teams on the ground in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India and Hong Kong. Poverty rates soared for the first time in almost two decades, dealing a blow to decades worth of poverty alleviation efforts.

‘With well over 100,000 views per episode, Poverty in Asia drew thousands of comments, ranging from words of encouragement for our profiles, to asking questions such as “is this poverty porn?” and “Why do the poor have so many children?”.

‘The producers behind the episodes, Aji Yahurti from Indonesia, Chen Yih Wen from Malaysia, Lolita Lachia from Philippines and Insight’s Ikhwan Adrian Rivai answer viewers’ questions and talk the about the challenges faced in recording the stories of the poor, amid a pandemic.

‘They also share about unexpected kindnesses and life lessons they learnt from those living in scarcity. One profile from the Philippines, Tricia Borromeo, had received $2,000 in donations to resume her university education, after the episode was released.’

View here (Channel News Asia video, Feb 18, 2021)

Coronavirus pandemic could push over 1 billion people in extreme poverty by 2030, says UN

‘Due to the severe long-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic, an additional 207 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030. This will bring the total number of the world's extremely poor to more than a billion, according to a new study by the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

‘The study assesses the impact of different coronavirus recovery scenarios on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), evaluating the multidimensional effects of the pandemic over the next decade. It is part of a long-standing partnership between the UNDP and the Pardee Center for International Futures at the University of Denver.’

Read here (India Today, Dec 6, 2020)

We need fresh ideas to handle the Covid recession — Jeyakumar Devaraj

‘What is the most appropriate budget for Malaysia to navigate the economic recession that the Covid pandemic has precipitated? This is the crucial issue we should be discussing so that appropriate solutions can be found. Each country needs to develop a national consensus on how the finite financial capacity of the nation should be deployed to limit the health and economic fallout of the ongoing pandemic. Unfortunately, we in Malaysia have been distracted by political intrigues for far too long.

‘The PSM would like to share our analysis of the current recession and put forward a set of ideas on how we should tackle the economic fallout of the Covid Pandemic. We need a clear understanding of the situation we are in so that we can plan coherently for the coming year...’ 

The analysis and suggestions come under seven headings:

1. We cannot “talk up” the economy
2. Pumping in more credit into the system is not going to work
3. The government has to take the lead role in managing the economy and protecting the rakyat
4. This is not going to be a V-shaped recession
5. More targeted relief for the poorest families
6. A “Green New Deal” for Malaysia
7. The government should use “debt monetisation” as one of the methods to raise funds for the programs mentioned above.

Read here (The Malay Mail, Oct 28, 2020) 

Coronavirus crisis shatters India's big dreams

‘Not so long ago, India’s future looked entirely different. It boasted a sizzling economy that was lifting millions out of poverty, building modern megacities and amassing serious geopolitical firepower. It aimed to give its people a middle-class lifestyle, update its woefully vintage military and become a regional political and economic superpower that could someday rival China, Asia’s biggest success story. But the economic devastation in Surat and across the country is imperiling many of India’s aspirations. The Indian economy has shrunk faster than any other major nation’s. As many as 200 million people could slip back into poverty, according to some estimates. Many of its normally vibrant streets are empty, with people too frightened of the outbreak to venture far.

‘Much of this damage was caused by the coronavirus lockdown imposed by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, which experts now say was at turns both too tight and too porous, both hurting the economy and spreading the virus. India now has the fastest growing coronavirus crisis, with more than 80,000 new infections reported each day.’

Read here (New York Times, Sept 5, 2020)

Preventing a Covid-19 food crisis

‘Nomura’s Food Vulnerability Index ranks 110 countries based on their exposure to large food-price swings, taking into account their nominal GDP per capita, the share of food in household consumption, and net food imports. The latest reading shows that of the 50 countries most vulnerable to a sustained rise in food prices, nearly all are developing economies that account for nearly three-fifths of the world’s population.’

Read here (Project Syndicate, May 15, 2020)

Study warns 1.1 million children, 56,000 mothers, could die as pandemic interrupts access to food & medical care

A new report finds 1.1 million children under 5 could die, and 56,700 maternal deaths occur, in the next six months from secondary impacts of the pandemic, like disruptions to health services and access to food... ‘Our most severe scenario (coverage reductions of 39·3–51·9% and wasting increase of 50%) over 6 months would result in 1,157,000 additional child deaths and 56,700 additional maternal deaths.’

Read here (The Lancet, May 12, 2020)

‘Dignity not destitution: An ‘economic rescue plan for all’ to tackle the Coronavirus crisis and rebuild a more equal world’. A paper by Oxfam

Oxfam calls for US$2.5 trillion plan to tackle the pandemic and prevent global economic collapse in a paper:

‘New analysis shows the economic crisis caused by coronavirus could push over half a billion people into poverty unless urgent and dramatic action is taken... We can only beat this virus through coming together as one. Developing countries must act to protect their people, and demand action from rich nations to support them. Rich country governments must massively upscale their help – led by the G20. This paper lays out an Economic Rescue Plan For All that meets the scale of the crisis, mobilising at least $2.5 trillion dollars to tackle the pandemic and prevent global economic collapse. It prioritises helping people directly: giving cash grants to all who need them. An immediate suspension of the debt payments of poor countries, combined with a one-off economic stimulus by the IMF and an increase in aid and taxes, can pay for this.’

Download here (Oxfam, April 9, 2020)

Making the invisible visible: Faces of poverty in Malaysia revealed under the MCO

This article, by Bridget Welsh and Calvin Cheng, is written in the context of the current movement control order (MCO) as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak. It concludes:

‘Moving ahead, a serious rethink of how to address vulnerabilities and the poor is needed, beyond cash transfers of assistance and other immediate relief measures. The poor as a whole need to be recognised and disaggregated, with more attention to how to treat those facing the most serious hardships. A key step is to start getting the numbers right and to stop leaving out the many different groups being affected.

‘Practically, a task force can be set up to look at different sets of policies that are more holistic in addressing needs and causes along the various dimensions, with greater collaboration with NGOs, academics and international organisations, notably United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This will allow for better targeting of available limited resources, offer opportunities to find new resources and importantly, allow for the framing of sound policies that will not just ameliorate problems caused by Covid-19, but also work to address the underlying social conditions that will inevitably worsen as the economy contracts.

‘A crucial part of the way forward is to make the reality of poverty more visible.’

Read here (Malaysiakini, April 4, 2020)