As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in Africa and Southern Asia, and the global economy enters a synchronized recession unseen since the Second World War, the world’s poorest countries brace for yet another shock that threatens to deepen global inequalities and exacerbate an already challenging situation.
Public health and socio-economic concerns are deeply intertwined all over the world, but all the more so in contexts like the least developed countries (LDCs).
Indeed, even though two-thirds of people in LDCs live in rural areas, many of them reside in overcrowded urban settlements lacking basic services. They can hardly cope with strict social distancing, as well as broader economic shocks that directly affect their income.
Even prior to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, respectable gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates in the 47 LDCs were only weakly translating into inclusive social outcomes.
The decline in poverty headcount ratios had markedly decelerated in the aftermath of the 2009 global financial crisis.
Over the last decade, it has been so sluggish that the number of people living in extreme poverty (i.e. below $1.90/day) in the LDCs has increased from 340 million people in 2010 to an estimated 349 million in 2018. This was largely due to the situation in African LDCs.
Reversing progress
The interplay between the COVID-19 outbreak, the contraction in demand – globally and even more so in some of LDCs’ major trading markets – and the free-fall of international commodity prices will likely reverse the limited progress that has been made in poverty reduction.
This will steer us even further away from achieving the first United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of ending poverty in all its forms everywhere. Read more…
