London, September 14 (HNA) – The report released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) showed that high-income countries were able to provide 212 times more social assistance than low-income countries during the pandemic.
Governments rolled out an unprecedented number of social protective measures to cushion the social and economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the wealth level of countries was an important factor for the people in need of accessing social assistance. Globally, $2.9 trillion was invested in social protection policies, but only $379 billion were spent by developing countries.
The data collected from 41 countries indicate that the countries implementing social assistance measures managed to prevent 80 percent of people -12 million of 15 million- from falling below the US$1.90 poverty line. At the $5.50 poverty line, the same 41 countries managed to prevent 31 of 42 million people from falling into poverty since March 2020.
UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner drew attention to the stark difference between wealthy and poor countries, saying “The Covid-19 pandemic triggered the roll-out of an unprecedented number of new and often innovative social protection measures. That included social assistance spending, which played a critical role in keeping people out of poverty. Yet access to this lifeline depends on where you live – with richer countries spending as much as 212 times per capita more on social protection during the pandemic than their poorer neighbours.” To enable all countries to provide sufficient social assistance to their citizens, expanding the fiscal space is essential.
The incomes of informal workers were estimated to have decreased by 60 percent globally in the first month of the crisis. Estimates covering the whole of 2020 suggest that the loss of labour incomes had reached a staggering $3.7 trillion globally as a result of working-hour losses (equivalent to more than 220 million full-time jobs), with lower-middle-income countries being the hardest hit. Further, the crisis pushed the number of acutely food insecure people to 270 million in 2020, an 82 percent increase compared to pre-pandemic projections.
The gendered outcome of the crisis is worrisome. More women than men lost their jobs or experienced a disproportionate decline in their incomes, resulting in a widening of gaps in labour market outcomes and opportunities. Estimates suggest that the loss of women’s jobs in 2020 reached 64 million globally. There are two main factors behind this disparity. First, the pandemic has particularly affected sectors with high female employment shares. Second, the demand for childcare has increased due to the closures of schools and daycare centres. Consequently, mothers -more often than fathers- have reduced their working hours or shifted to unemployment or even inactivity.
For low middle-income countries, social assistance spending was insufficient to prevent an increase in the number of poor people, and in low-income countries, it could not prevent income losses at all. While high-income countries have allocated an average of $847 per capita on all social protection policies (social assistance and insurance), low- and middle-income countries have spent a per capita average of just $124. Among low-income countries only, the amounts of total social protection per capita are as low as $4. The capacity to respond to the crisis was not only smaller among poorer countries, but further, not all of them were able to provide any income support to mitigate the short-term effects on income losses.