The Virus Isn’t The Leveller

Context: Pandemic has widened gaps between countries, and within them

Impact of the pandemic

• Economic contraction: Affected 190 countries, leading to a 4.3% contraction of the world economy.
• Perpetuated inequalities: On three interconnected fronts:
  • Inequalities in access to and availability of vaccines:
    • The Duke Global Health Institute’s assessment shows that wealthy countries had taken an early lead in striking purchase deals, in effect, cornering a lion’s share of available vaccine doses.
    • The Covax global initiative to support vaccinations in 92 developing nations simply did not have enough funds at the time to secure doses.
  • Loss of livelihood and standards of living:
    • The World Bank estimates suggest that up to 150 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2021.
    • The per capita in- come levels in low-income countries fell by 3.6 % in 2020, with output falling by 0.9% – the largest contraction in 30 years.
    • This will lead to a reversal of the hard-fought gains in the living standards of the poor and widening the north-south divide.
    • The pandemic and lockdowns led to job losses in lower skills sectors, whereas simultaneously positive job growth is visible in high-skill service sectors such as ICT and finance.
    • According to the IMF, commodity-dependent countries, tourism-based economies and physical contact-intensive sectors will face difficult prospects going forward.
    • Nearly 90% of all enterprises in Asia and Africa are MSMEs, and many rely on small supplier networks, which are also badly affected.
  • Gender inequality across sectors:
    • According to a survey, female-owned businesses were 5.9 percentage points more likely to have faced closure than male-owned ones during/post-Covid-19.
    • Women are more likely to be employed in low-paying, insecure and informal jobs, even as the global gender pay gap remains persistently high at nearly 20%.

Way Forward: Need for collaborative international efforts:

• The Covax initiative needs an estimated minimum of $2 billion in additional funding to lock in some doses till early 2022.
• According to IMF research, $50 billion worth of investments towards vaccinating the world by early 2022 can yield economic returns worth $9 trillion by 2025.