UN hikes coronavirus aid demand for third time
July 17, 2020
The United Nations on Friday called on the world's wealthiest nations for an additional $3.6 billion (€3.2 billion) to respond to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in some of the world's poorest countries.
The global agency initially requested $2 billion in March, followed by $6.7 billion in May. It now says its aid requirement for 63 states, mostly in Africa and Latin America, will reach $10.3 billion.
The UN added that it has only received $1.7 billion in support to date and warned that developed countries will pay "the price of inaction” if developing nations do not receive help.
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"The response so far of wealthy nations, who've rightly thrown out the fiscal and monetary rule books to protect their own people and economies, the response that they've made to the situations in other countries has been grossly inadequate and that's dangerously shortsighted,” said UN aid chief Mark Lowcock.
He warned that if action is not taken, the pandemic will trigger an increase in global poverty for the first time since 1990 and push over a quarter-billion people to the brink of starvation.
‘COVID-19 has changed everything‘
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and researchers from the UK's University of Oxford said that several nations significantly reduced their poverty levels in the past two decades.
Of the 75 countries studied by the UNDP and OPHI, 65 significantly reduced their poverty levels since 2000.
Sierra Leone, India and China were considered the most improved nations in moving people out of poverty.
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"COVID-19 has changed everything. With its triple hit on health, education and income, and so many other aspects in people's lives, it threatens to reverse overall global human development,” said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner. "It is also propelling millions back into multi-dimensional poverty.”
Lowcock, meanwhile, warned that poor countries risk destabilizing and descending into unrest due to the economic damage from the pandemic.
A projection from the UN and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) has warned that more than 121 million people could be affected by food insecurity by December if nothing is done.
"There is a serious risk of multiple famines later this year and early next year. We need to invest now to prevent that,” said Lowcock.
kbd/mm (Reuters, AFP, dpa)