“The virus is more likely to starve us than make us sick,” a Kenya taxi driver said in a statement research that Oxfam did in 126 countries. This shows that for a third of the world population, the corona measures pose a greater risk than the virus itself, due to the lack of a financial safety net.
In the Netherlands we have social schemes such as the TOZO, the NOW and the TVL to absorb the worst blows of the pandemic. But in many countries, the government is unable to protect the population and the economy against the corona virus.
“We are very concerned about the extreme poverty that threatens in low- and middle-income countries because these people do not receive government support,” said Oxfam researcher Esmé Berkhout in the report. NOS Radio 1 news .
International creditors
In countries where a partial social safety net was already in place, such as the Philippines, Bolivia, Namibia and South Africa, the population can count on relatively good social protection from the government. But in countries such as Angola, Ethiopia, Liberia and Ukraine, which already faced poverty, the population is left to their own devices.
Berkhout: “In our report we call on the governments of these countries to invest in social protection of the population. The reason that this support is not offered is sometimes a political choice, but often also because there is no money. Many countries go. weighed down under a huge international indebtedness. We want donors and international creditors to see what can be done to cancel the debt. “
At the back of access to vaccines
Berkhout is also concerned about the recovery of these vulnerable economies. “The lack of vaccine in these parts of the world is blocking economic recovery. This is partly due to wealthy countries that have bought up a large proportion of the available vaccines.”
According to Oxfam, more development aid is needed to support the world’s population in the short term, but more is needed to ensure that everyone has access to a financial safety net in the long term.
“Many rich countries have kept their pledge 0.7 percent of the gross domestic product to be spent on development aid not after. So there too lies a responsibility for rich countries so that poorer countries can also find their way out of the pandemic. “
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