10% global GDP needed to tide over Covid-19 crisis: UN

The Covid-19 crisis is likely to have a profound and negative effect on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change because of which a post-crisis coordination mechanism is vital to ensure that all countries have adequate fiscal space to recover, the March 2020 report of the United Nations stated.

Titled ‘Socio-Economic Impact of Covid-19: Shared Responsibility, Global Solidarity’, the report offers suggestions on global responses to tackle the pandemic, which included creating a corpus fund of at least 10% of the global GDP, debt restructuring to help fragile economies, and dismantling sanctions and other trade barriers, especially to allow medicinal and related products.

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The cost of remittances - a lifeline in the developing world - should be brought as close to zero as possible, the report stated, adding that the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other international financial institutions will be critical to this endeavour.

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Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by all member states of the UN back in 2015, and aimed at improving the future of countries across several areas, including environment, health care, gender equality, education and sustainable living by 2030. The Paris Agreement signed in 2016, meanwhile, aims to specifically combat climate change.

According to the report, the pandemic’s impact on the environment is likely to be positive in the short term as drastic reduction in economic activity has reduced CO2 emissions and pollution in many areas.

However, once countries resume economic activity, the report warns of the “significant risk” that nations would be tempted to divert all political capital and limited financial resources away from the implementation of the SDGs. If this were to happen, the negative impact would be felt across sectors, the UN report warned.

“A hard truth is that we could have been better prepared for this crisis. The MDGs and the SDGs could have put us on track towards a world with access to universal health coverage and quality health care... Instead… most countries are characterised by weak, fragmented health systems that do not ensure the universal access and capacity needed to face the Covid-19 health crisis,” the report said.

MDGs or Millennium Development Goals, set in 2000 to be achieved by 2015, are a set of eight global goals aimed at reducing poverty.

Had countries achieved the MDGs or SDGs better, then the health care crisis facing even developed nations like the US, as well as the developing nations of South Asia, would be better equipped to handle the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, as it stands, more than 50% of the world’s rural population and over 20% of the urban population lack legal health care coverage, while 2.2 billion people lack access to water depriving people of the most basic and effective prevention measure against the Covid-19 virus, frequent hand-washing, the report stated.

Calling for a concerted global effort to tackle the crisis, the UN report offered a host of suggestions to avoid the impending humanitarian crisis after the pandemic has run its course.

“This is the moment to dismantle trade barriers, maintain open trade, and re-establish supply chains. Tariff and non-tariff measures as well as export bans, especially those imposed on medicinal and related products, would slow countries’ action to contain the virus. Import taxes or restrictions on medical supplies need to be waived,” it stated.

“Sanctions imposed on countries should be waived to ensure access to food, essential supplies and access to Covid-19 tests and medical support. This is the time for solidarity, not exclusion,” the UN report said.