SOLIDARITY NEEDED TO FIGHT WORSENING POVERTY – WB

THE World Bank stressed the need for strong international cooperation in reducing poverty as it warned that the number of extremely poor people would rise because of the impact of the coroNAVIRUS DISEASE 2019 (COVID-19) PANDEMIC, CONflICT and climate change.

“For the longer term, we need to reverse this negative trend of increased poverty and also to get back on track with regard to the Sustainable Development Goals — and that will require action by the international community be it on the multilateral side, bilateral side but also the national side,” Axel van Trotsenburg, managing director of Operations at World Bank, said during the End Poverty Day 2020 event hosted by the World Bank on Saturday as part of its Annual Meeting 2020.

The official added that decades of steady progress in reducing extreme poverty would suffer a setback this year.

“We are now estimating between 88 and 115 million people will fall back into extreme poverty. And just to give you the dimensions of the problem, that is equivalent to the population of Egypt or Vietnam or the Philippines,” van Trotsenburg said.

He noted that the estimated range was on top of between 68 and 103 million people expected to fall into extreme poverty as a result of the effects of climate change. The World Bank expects the number of THE EXTREME POOR LIVING IN CONflICT-AFFECTED COUNTRIES will also increase.

“This is a question of international solidarity, but it is also smart investment to help these countries back on track. That is what we are advocating, what we are doing every single day, and what we need to continue to do,” van Trotsenburg said.

Responding to these new realities, the institution COMMITTED $43 BILLION OF THE $160-BILLION fiNANCING package it offered earlier this year to pandemic-affected countries.

It said 111 countries would benefit from the $14-BILLION PACKAGE IN FAST-TRACK fiNANCING TO ASSIST companies and governments in their efforts to prevent, detect and respond to the rapid spread of the coronavirus.

The World Bank also approved $12 billion to fiNANCE THE PURCHASE AND DISTRIBUTION OF COVID-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments for their citizens.

IN TERMS OF CONflICT AND CLIMATE CHANGE, VAN TROtsenburg said the multilateral lender had doubled its efforts in the last three years by investing in fragile countries and aggressively working with countries around the world to mitigate climate change.

To boost social protection and job generation, he bared that the World Bank embarked on a “fairly AMBITIOUS” $50 BILLION TO $60 BILLION fiNANCING PACKage for the poorest countries.

“We can, in times of crisis, not leave the countries that are among the poorest out of our conCERNS,” THE BANK OFfiCIAL SAID.