The progress made in the fight against extreme poverty will be literally wiped out by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. This is what Oxfam says.
From crisis to catastrophe. This is the title of the new report in which the NGO Oxfam estimates the consequences that the coronavirus and the war in Ukraine will have for the most vulnerable sections of the population. A merciless title, because the numbers are merciless: we are talking about a further 263 million people who could fall back into extreme poverty during 2022.
By signing up to the 2030 Agenda, the 193 member states of the United Nations formally committed to eradicating poverty by the end of this decade. It is the first of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Reality, however, appears very different from this promise.
The pandemic, combined with the rise in inequality that follows from it, will push a further 198 million people to live below the extreme poverty line, corresponding to an income of $1.90 a day. Added to this is the war in Ukraine, which has caused a sharp rise in energy and food prices, bringing another 65 million people to their economic knees. The total is 263 million, twice the population of Mexico. And that is in 2022 alone. Factoring in those who were already living in extreme poverty beforehand, the figure reaches 860 million. That is 11 per cent of humanity.
The risk — a real one — is that all the progress made in the fight against poverty over the last quarter of a century will be wiped out. To avoid such a glaring step backwards, Oxfam is calling on governments to get personally involved, and to do so urgently.
On one hand, it is necessary to assist all those people who are excluded from welfare and social security systems (it is estimated that $707 billion is needed to make them truly universal). This can be done through cash transfers, the establishment of a global fund for social protection, and measures to cap the prices of essential goods.
The World Bank also estimates that the economies of 33 countries are severely undermined by high levels of indebtedness to private creditors, governments and public bodies in the wealthier countries. The only possible response, according to Oxfam, is to cancel all debt service payments for developing countries in the current year. By doing so, these 33 states would have more than 27 billion euros available to reinvest in healthcare, education and social protection systems.
Those who can afford to pay, the NGO concludes, are the billionaires and multinationals that have grown their profits and their power during the health emergency. Consider, for example, the imposition of a progressive tax of 2 per cent on every personal net worth above $5 million, rising to 3 per cent above $50 million and 5 per cent above $1 billion: the proceeds would amount to $2,520 billion, that is €2,325 billion. At the same time, large corporations should be prevented from hiding their profits in tax havens.
