UN launches plan to fight virus impacts

THE United Nations chief has launched a new plan to counter the potentially devastating socioeconomic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, calling on everyone to “act together to lessen the blow to people.”

“The new coronavirus disease is attacking societies at their core, claiming lives and people’s livelihoods,” Secretary-General António Guterres said. He warned that the potential longer-term effects on

the global economy and individual countries are “dire.”

The new report titled “Shared responsibility, global solidarity: Responding to the socioeconomic impacts of Covid-19,” calls for a coordinated global response to fight the societal and economic disruption caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 or Covid-19.

“Covid- 19 is the greatest test that we have faced since the formation of the United Nations,” Guterres said. “This human crisis demands coordinated, decisive, inclusive and innovative policy action from the world’s leading economies — and maximum financial and technical support for the poorest and most vulnerable people and countries.”

Guterres called for “an immediate coordinated health response to suppress transmission and end the pandemic,” as well as the scaling up of capacities for testing, tracing, quarantine and treatment.

Developed countries must assist those less developed or “face the nightmare of the disease spreading like wildfire in the global South with millions of deaths and the prospect of the disease re-emerging where it was previously suppressed.”

“Let us remember that we are only as strong as the weakest health system in our interconnected world,” he stressed.

In tackling the devastating social and economic dimensions of the crisis, the UN chief said focus should be on the most vulnerable by designing policies that provided health and unemployment insurance and social protections while also bolstering businesses to prevent bankruptcies and job losses.

Debt alleviation must also be a priority, the UN chief said.

“When we get past this crisis, which we will, we will face a

choice. We can go back to the world as it was before or deal decisively with those issues that make us all unnecessarily vulnerable to crises,” Guterres said.

The other measures needed to cope with coronavirus impacts include stimulus package reaching double- digit percentage points of the world’s gross domestic product, with explicit actions to boost the economies of developing countries; regional mobilization that examine impacts, monetary coordination, fiscal and social measures, while engaging with private financial sector to support businesses and addressing structural challenges and the provision of fiscal stimulus for the most vulnerable and to small- and medium-sized enterprises.

“What the world needs now is solidarity. With solidarity we can defeat the virus and build a better world,” the UN chief said.

According to the UN International Labor Organization, 5 to 25 million jobs will be eradicated, and the world will lose $860 billion to $3.4 trillion in labor income.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development projected a 30- to 40- percent downward pressure on global foreign direct investment flows while the World Tourism Organization sees a 20- to 30-percent decline in international arrivals.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization forecast that 1.5 billion students would be out of school.

“History will judge the efficacy of the response not by the actions of any single set of government actors taken in isolation, but by the degree to which the response is coordinated globally across all sectors for the benefit of our human family,’’ Guterres said. “With the right actions, the Covid- 19 pandemic can mark the beginning of a new type of global and societal cooperation.”