While data is not yet available to measure the rise of global multidimensional poverty after the pandemic, simulations for 70 countries in the developing world, based on the anticipated impacts of the virus on just two components of the global MPI – nutrition and school attendance – suggests how much impact the crisis could have unless it is addressed.

La pandemia de COVID-19 y la crisis mundial que ha provocado han colocado a los países de renta baja al borde de la ruina. Si no se toman medidas urgentes, pronto veremos una serie de tragedias humanitarias brutales y destructivas, advirtió este jueves la ONU al solicitar a las economías del G20 fondos por 10.300 millones de dólares para financiar el Plan Global de Respuesta Humanitaria.

El coordinador de las Naciones Unidas para Asuntos Humanitarios, Mark Lowcock, explicó que el Plan contempla intervenciones de emergencia en 63 países que no cuentan con los medios para hacer frente a la pandemia y que su intención es beneficiar a 250 millones de personas.

“The pandemic and associated global recession are about to wreak havoc in fragile and low-income countries”, he said. “The response of wealthy nations so far has been grossly inadequate and dangerously short-sighted. Failure to act now will leave the virus free to circle round the globe, undo decades of development and create a generation’s worth of tragic and exportable problems.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this – this is a problem that can be fixed with money from wealthy nations and fresh thinking from the shareholders of international financial institutions and supporters of UN agencies, the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, and NGOs,” UN’s top humanitarian official warned.

El Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) aprobó una asistencia no reembolsable de US$60 millones para apoyar a los sectores más vulnerables de Haití frente a la crisis causada por la COVID-19.

La ayuda será administrada por el Fondo de Asistencia Económica y Social (FAES), un organismo autónomo dependiente del Ministerio de Finanzas, que se encarga de implementar los programas de asistencia social en Haití, donde 59 por ciento de la población vive bajo la línea de pobreza.

A $76.2 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will help finance efforts to contain the pandemic, mitigate its effect on poor households, and promote counter-cyclical policies that will ease the crisis' short-term effect on the economy.

Broader structural challenges must be addressed to build back better and transform the region’s development model.

Against the backdrop of pervasive inequality, accessible and comprehensive welfare systems must be developed, fair taxation systems created, decent jobs promoted, environmental sustainability strengthened, and social protection mechanisms reinforced, according to the UN chief. Moreover, regional economic integration is required, with “women participating fully and safely in public and economic life”, he stressed.

As the world continues to combat COVID-19, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is calling on the German Presidency of the European Union (EU) to keep refugee protection high on the agenda. UNHCR is proposing concrete ways the EU can ensure a bold and robust response to forced displacement during the pandemic as well as long term. The envisaged EU Pact on Migration and Asylum also provides an opportunity for the EU to better protect forcibly displaced people in Europe and abroad, and support host countries.

“Now more than ever, the safety of our society as a whole depends on the effective protection of the most vulnerable. Xenophobia and discrimination undermine our response to the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to address the socio-economic impacts that disproportionately burden the most vulnerable and marginalized elements of our societies including migrants”, said IOM Director General António Vitorino.

As the world continues to combat COVID-19, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is calling on the German Presidency of the European Union (EU) to keep refugee protection high on the agenda. UNHCR is proposing concrete ways the EU can ensure a bold and robust response to forced displacement during the pandemic as well as long term. The envisaged EU Pact on Migration and Asylum also provides an opportunity for the EU to better protect forcibly displaced people in Europe and abroad, and support host countries.

The contribution of USD$5.3 million will benefit a total of fifteen Caribbean countries including Trinidad and Tobago. Overall, the collaboration will support increased access to Personal Protective Equipment and other critical supplies to assist countries in their efforts to save lives and limit the human-to-human transmission of the COVID-19 Pandemic, focusing on populations experiencing marginalization or vulnerability, including health care workers.

“In these challenging times we need to reinforce, support and work in partnership with NHRIs to address COVID-19. We also need to support member states to ‘recover back better’ - to use inclusive approaches in their recovery towards achieving the SDGs and securing the social contract,” stated Asako Okai, UN Assistant Secretary General and Director of UNDP’s Crisis Bureau.

La pandemia también ha provocado una escasez de opioides, lo que a su vez puede hacer que las personas busquen sustancias más fácilmente disponibles como el alcohol, los benzodiacepinas o la mezcla con drogas sintéticas. La Oficina alerta que en consecuencia pueden surgir patrones de uso más dañinos a medida que algunos usuarios pueden decidir comenzar a inyectarse, o inyectarse más seguido.

Because the pandemic has led to highly addictive opioid shortages, people may seek out more readily available substances, including alcohol, sedatives or by using more harmful delivery methods, such as intravenous injection.

Reports of some being locked in their rooms, while others have felt totally isolated and abandoned, are some of the examples of discrimination and inequality that those living with disability have experienced.

PAHO’s director Carissa Etienne said countries must adjust and coordinate their COVID-19 response based on increasingly detailed data. “Governments will have to make decisions, considering simultaneously health, economic, and social indicators. This will allow health officials to understand where transmission is accelerating, and which groups are at greater risk so as to better target their efforts,” she added.

Within the region, the Caribbean economies are suffering even more due to their high dependence on one of the most dramatically impacted sectors—tourism—which, for some, accounts for 50 to 90 percent of GDP and employment.

Given the scale of the crisis and unprecedented uncertainty, governments have had to also deploy fiscal measures to strengthen the health system, protect the most vulnerable and support employment and otherwise viable businesses.

The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the Central American Program for Integrated Coffee Rust Management (PROCAGICA) collaborated to distribute seeds and inputs to coffee farmers in several districts in Nicaragua, as part of strategic actions to assist in reducing rural vulnerability triggered by Covid-19.

The objective is to reduce vulnerability in two ways: by supporting the production of food with short cycle crops and offering farmers the opportunity to earn income by selling crop surpluses.

This multi-country allocation will be channelled to NGOs at a country level and help address the most pressing humanitarian needs based on the in-country priorities in health (including mental health and psychosocial support), and water and sanitation outlined in the Global Humanitarian Response Plan for COVID-19. Focus will be given to gender issues, including gender-based violence, and the needs of people living with disabilities. 

Stocks of medication for HIV patients could run out in the next two months, because of higher costs linked to lockdowns and COVID-19 border closures, UNAIDS said on Monday.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, and the related school closures, we have seen a rise in violence and hate online – and this includes bullying. Now, as schools begin to re-open, children are expressing their fears about going back to school,” said Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General. “It is our collective responsibility to ensure that schools are safe environments for all children. We need to think and act collectively to stop violence at school and in our societies at large.”