UN: 1 billion people could be in poverty by 2030 due to coronavirus

Worst-case scenario can be prevented by comprehensive action plan, UN says

Staff from the Wuhan Hygiene Emergency Response Team conduct searches on the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in the city of Wuhan at the start of the outbreak on January 11, 2020. AFP

A woman leaves the Wuhan Medical Treatment Centre, where a man who died from a respiratory illness was confined on January 12, 2020. A 61-year-old man is thought to be the first person to die. AFP

A woman wears a plastic water bottle with a cutout to cover her face, as she walks on a footbridge in Hong Kong on January 31, 2020, as a preventative measure following a virus outbreak which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan.. AFP

An empty Times Square is seen on the street following the outbreak of coronavirus in New York City, U.S., March 18, 2020. Reuters

A nurse wearing protective mask and gear comforts another as they change shifts on March 13, 2020 at the Cremona hospital, southeast of Milan. AFP

A woman takes part in an online pilates class at home in Nicosia, Cyprus, as restrictions on movement and social distancing were imposed across the island nation. AFP

A woman standing on her balcony, reaches out to catch a rose delivered to her via a drone on Mother's day, in the Lebanese coastal city of Jounieh, north of the capital Beirut on March 21, 2020. AFP

Police inspector Rajesh Babu, wearing a coronavirus-themed helmet, speaks to a family during a government-imposed nationwide lockdown on March 28, 2020. AFP

Healthcare workers wearing face masks and protective suits acknowledge applause outside the Hospital de Barcelona on April 13, 2020 in Barcelona, during a national lockdown. AFP

A racoon walks in a deserted Central Park in Manhattan on April 16, 2020 in New York City. Gone are the softball games, horse-drawn carriages and hordes of tourists. AFP

A woman in a mask walks past a mural of a hand on the side of a building in Midtown New York City April 22, 2020. AFP

View of the Intensive Care Unit at the Gilberto Novaes Hospital in Manaus, Brazil, on May 20, 2020. AFP

An Iraqi man in a hazmat suit takes pictures of a relative's tombstone at a cemetery for Covid-19 victims, 20 km from the central Iraqi holy city of Najaf, on June 10, 2020. AFP

Irish Paralympic hopeful Leo Hynes, who is blind, trains in his home-made training pool in his front garden at home in Tuam, Co Galway, west Ireland, on June 18, 2020. AFP

The Uceli Quartet perform for an audience made of plants during a concert created by Spanish artist Eugenio Ampudia and that will be later streamed to mark the reopening of the Liceu Grand Theatre in Barcelona on June 22, 2020 following a national lockdown. AFP

A lab technician operates a laser machine that tests rapid DPI blood tests at Dubai's Mina Rashid screening centre on August 26, 2020. Chris Whiteoak / The National

An Aymara indigenous woman wears a face mask as she offers cleaning products for sale at the Rodriguez Market in La Paz, Bolivia, on September 1, 2020, AFP

A worker disinfects footballs before the closed-door Copa Libertadores group phase football match between Colombia's Junior and Ecuador's Barcelona at the Roberto Melendez Stadium in Barranquilla, Colombia, on September 30, 2020. AFP

A patient infected with coronavirus lies in an intensive care room of the Estree Private Hospital in Stains, on the outskirts of Paris on November 12, 2020. AFP

A protestor holding a placard is spoken to by police officers as she attends an anti-vaccine demonstration outside the offices of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in central London on November 24, 2020. AFP

Around 1 billion people, or a seventh of the world’s population, could be in poverty by 2030 if the response to the coronavirus pandemic is mishandled, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has warned.

Long term effects of the pandemic could push an additional 207 million into extreme poverty, the study found.

The findings were based on a ‘High Damage scenario’ which modelled that 80 per cent of the Covid-19-induced economic crises would persist in 10 years’ time due to loss in productivity, preventing a full recovery to the growth trajectory seen before the pandemic.

“The Covid-19 pandemic is a tipping point, and the choices leaders take now could take the world in very different directions, said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner, adding that they was still time to act to avoid such a calamity.

Investments in government services, social protection, the green economy and digitalisation would make extreme poverty less rampant, UNDP said.

Not only could such investments mitigate the global impact of the virus, but if allocated effectively, could create a better 2030 than what was projected before the pandemic broke out.

Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, already suffering from their own conflicts, are only some of places where the coronavirus has hit hardest. A grim combination of conflict, disease and a reduction in global trade flows has caused the world’s need for aid to grow by 40 per cent, the UN said earlier this week.

“The Covid-19 crisis has plunged millions of people into poverty and sent humanitarian needs skyrocketing,” UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said.

The UN will convene on Thursday to discuss how it could deliver the coronavirus vaccine to poorer nations while wealthier states such as the US, UK, France and Germany continue to place orders for the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines.

Developing nations like India and South Africa have been pushing for drug makers to share their intellectual property, allowing them to potentially manufacture their own vaccines.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed about 1.5 million people globally and infected more than 64 million. But the UN’s Covax plan to make vaccines available to everybody at little to no cost, remains underfunded.