Coronavirus is a crisis for the developing world, but here's why it needn't be a catastrophe
While countries in east Asia and Europe are gradually taking steps towards reopening their economies, many in the global south are wondering whether the worst of the pandemic is yet to come. As economists who work on poverty alleviation in developing countries, we are often asked what the effects of coronavirus will be in south Asia and Africa. The truth is, we don’t know. Without extensive testing to map the number of cases, it’s impossible to tell how far the virus has already spread. We don’t yet have enough information about how Covid-19 behaves under different conditions such as sunlight, heat and humidity. Developing countries’ more youthful populations may spare them the worst of the pandemic, but health systems in the global south are poorly equipped to deal with an outbreak, and poverty is linked to co-morbidities that put people at a higher risk of serious illness.
Without the information widespread testing provides, many poorer countries have taken an extremely cautious approach. India imposed a total lockdown on 24 March, by which time the country had about 500 confirmed cases. Countries such as Rwanda, South Africa and Nigeria enforced lockdowns in late March, long before the virus was expected to peak. But these lockdown measures can’t last forever. Poorer countries could have used the quarantine to buy time, gather information about how the disease behaves and develop a testing and tracing strategy. Unfortunately, not much of this has happened. And, far from coming to their aid, rich countries have outrun poorer nations in the race for PPE, oxygen and ventilators.
In many places, the human toll of the lockdown is already becoming obvious. Children go without vaccinations and crops are not harvested.
As construction projects stall and markets are shuttered, jobs and incomes evaporate. The effects of prolonged quarantine on developing nations could be as harmful as the virus itself. Before Covid-19 rippled across the world, 15,000 children under five died every day in the global south, mostly of preventable diseases associated with poverty. It’s likely that many more will die if their families are plunged further into poverty.
What can poor countries do in the face of this pandemic – and how can rich countries help them? First, the systematic testing strategies that have been crucial to containing the epidemic and easing lockdown measures in Europe are equally critical in poor countries. In places where public health authorities don’t have information about the spread of the virus and resources are limited, the response to coronavirus needs to be targeted at active hotspots. In this way, rather than imposing a universal lockdown, health authorities can identify the clusters where quarantine measures are required.
Second, developing countries must be able to improve the ability of their health systems to cope with a potential sudden influx of sick people.
And third, it’s crucial that poor countries are able to guarantee people a secure livelihood in the months to come. In the absence of such a guarantee, people will grow tired of quarantine measures and lockdowns will be increasingly difficult to enforce.To protect their economies from a collapse in demand, governments must reassure people that financial support will be available for as long as it’s needed.
In our recent book, written before coronavirus struck but with a title that is now eerily appropriate – Good Economics for Hard Times – we recommend that poor countries implement what we call a universal ultra basic income (UUBI), a regular cash transfer that amounts to enough for basic survival. The virtues of a UUBI are its simplicity, transparency, and its assurance that nobody will starve. It avoids the problems of many welfare systems that are designed to exclude the “non-deserving”, even at a cost to the needy. During a pandemic, when governments need to help as many people as quickly as possible, the simplicity of a UUBI could be lifesaving. Reassuring people that nobody will be excluded from subsistence aid also limits the feeling of existential foreboding that so many individuals in poor (and not so poor) countries are currently experiencing.
These ideas aren’t mere fantasy. The small west African country of Togo, with its eight million inhabitants and its GDP (purchasing power parity) per capita of $1,538, is working on all these fronts. In addition to testing 7,900 suspected cases, the country is deploying 5,000 test on a random basis to assess prevalence. Health authorities will use the results to determine whenand where to restrict peoples’ mobility. The government has also launched a cash transfer scheme linking an electronic wallet to peoples’ cellphones; it already has 1.3 million people registered and has sent money to 500,000in the region of Greater Lomé (the capital) alone.
The good news is that many countries, particularly those in Africa, already have the infrastructure to rapidly transfer money across a population using cellphones. Many people already use these systems in private exchanges, so government schemes based on this infrastructure can be up and running in a matter of days. If phone data indicates that some regions are experiencing greater economic distress, the transfer could be more generous in those places.
In fact, the greatest constraint we face isn’t the feasibility of these measures – it’s the willpower to finance them. Developing countries will need a substantial amount of help from richer nations if they are to pay for a UUBI. Some fear that their currencies will depreciate if they act aggressively, potentially spurring a debt crisis. Richer nations will need to work with global financial institutions to offer debt relief and additional resources to developing nations. Many developing countries will need to buy food and medical supplies with hard currency, which will become increasingly difficult because of faltering export earnings and collapsing remittances.
Given the unprecedented collapse in earnings that many people face, conventional fiscal prudence is perhaps less important now than it was in the recent past. Now is the time for governments to help citizens and economies by spending more, rather than less. The governments of developing countries may need to accept large budget deficits in order to finance a UUBI, at least in the short term. When countries begin to loosen their lockdowns and resume production, they will face extremely weak demand. Pledging that cash transfers will continue for some time in the future will allow people to go out and spend money when it becomes safe to do so. In turn, this will drive the revival of the economy.
None of this means that governments should simply ignore concerns about macro-economic stability. But a clear spending plan that responds to the immediate shock of coronavirus, in conjunction with a longer term strategy for how the lockdown will end, offers the best hope for preventing the present crisis developing into a future catastrophe.
• Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee won the 2019 Nobel prize in economics for their work on poverty alleviation. They are the authors of Good Economics for Hard Times
derful aesthetic but also most importantly it’s a good laugh and very heartwarming. MinusTheBear
Available on Amazon Prime in the UK and on HBO or to rent in the US
The Hidden
Small-time sci-fi adventure with Kyle McLachlan as the laconic alien looking to apprehend another very violent alien which can take over human bodies. Great non-stop fun! MiddenfaceMcNulty
Available to rent in the UK or US
Wake in Fright
Nick Cave sums it up well, I think, when he describes this film as the “best and most terrifying film about Australia in existence”.
A critic once described it as the Peckinpah film you’ve never heard of – it’s not a Peckinpah film, by the way, but it is often compared to Straw Dogs, which came out the same year.
Just watch it. You’ll be glad you did. youngdawg21
A drunken descent into madness and turpitude of a teacher stranded in a remote mining town in the Australian outback. Could be best classed as a psychological horror, Donald Pleasance is something else. ConradKnightSocks
Available on Amazon Prime in the US and on the BFI Player in the UK
The Club
Look for an Australian film about Australian rules football from 1980 called The Club. Based on a famous play. So brilliant as all the intrigue, greed and politics is universal. Jack Thompson, later a character actor in many a US film, plays the coach while the superstar signing was in the chasing pack in Mad Max: Fury Road. Haigin88
Available on Amazon Prime in the UK and US
Shirkers
I’ve seen great fiction films on the site but the documentary offerings have been the real revelation and this one originating from Singapore was the best. Genuinely odd and unpredictable – the characters lack that offputting performative gloss that many talking heads in doccies possess and the denouement will have you shaking your head and cheering. Do yourself a favour and skip researching the synopsis before you view … leventeia
Available on Netflix in the UK and US
Equinox
Matthew Modine, Lara Flynn Boyle and Fred Ward star. A magical little noirish fairytale of a story about separated twins, fate and inertia. It’s my favorite forgotten film of the 90s – quirky, mannered, beautifully shot, some great performances. A brilliant soundtrack, too. TheLetterO
Available to rent on Amazon Prime in the UK and on Apple in the US
The House that Jack Built
It was pretty disturbing but it was one of those films I couldn’t stop watching behind held-up hands. Lars Von Trier really is one sick puppy. Borucs
Available on Amazon Prime in the UK and US
The Guilty
A Danish thriller which consists of one person speaking on a phone. Tense and taut as a drum, it manages to be far more gripping than most of the dull, action-laden snore fests that pass for thrillers these days. abc987
Available on Netflix in the UK and Hulu in the US
Pariah
Really wonderful and it’s a crime that you could hardly get to see this in a cinema unless you caught it at an LGBT + film festival. It’s a great debut feature film from the woman who made Mudbound. JBLJL
Available to rent in the the UK and on Starz on Amazon Prime or to rent in the US
Columbus
A beautiful, mysterious and stunningly shot piece. Features a great performance from John Cho and an outstanding one from Haley Lu Richardson. FurtivePygmy
Available on Amazon Prime in the UK and on Kanopy or to rent in the US
The Package
The Package (1989) with Gene Hackman, Tommy Lee Jones, the late John Heard, Dennis Franz and Pam Grier. A hugely underrated late cold war conspiracy thriller that makes eccentric use of locations from Berlin to DC and Chicago. Possibly the last Berlin-set cold war thriller made before the wall came down. Probably explains why so few people have heard of it. apostatae
Available to rent in the UK and in the US
The Hunt
Incredibly moving film showing how rumour and hearsay can destroy a person’s life and how they are powerless once the community makes their mind up. You really feel the helplessness of the main character. In Danish with subtitles. Apparently it was Oscar-nominated for best FL film but it wasn’t one I’d heard much about. phil44sheffield
Available on Amazon Prime in the UK and Hoopla or to rent in the US
Midnight Special
Great cast (Michael Shannon, Adam Driver), kind of a road movie with supernatural and sci-fi elements that resolves beautifully at the end with strong close encounters vibes. I’m not describing it well, to be fair, but then again it’s best not to know too much about it before you watch. I’m aware it’s not a super obscure movie, but hardly anyone I know has seen it, and it’s always been enjoyed by those I’ve recommended it to. Easy to watch, and even family friendly (for older kids, at least, I think it’s a 12 certificate). StuMcGoo
Available on Amazon Prime in the UK and Hulu in the US
Proof
Overlooked 1991 gem starring Hugo
Alien arrives in New York in a pizzasized spacecraft. Feeds on an enzyme produced by the brain during orgasm. All kinds of fun and fun characters. norfsider
Available on Amazon Prime in the UK and US
Cold Pursuit
You think it’s going to be another Taken-style formulaic thriller, but it just gets funnier and funnier. The last scene had me in hysterics for at least 20 minutes. realmindfulness
Available on Amazon Prime in the UK and on HBO or to rent in the US
The Last Days of Chez Nous
An Australian film from the early 90s about the last days of a dying marriage. Much funnier and less melodramatic than that might sound. With a very young looking Miranda Otto and Bruno Ganz! fullerov
Available on Netflix in the USand on Netflixand Amazon Prime in the UK
Steel Rain
South Korean political action thriller. About an attempted coup in North Korea, and the communist soldier who rescues Kim Jong-il by abducting him into the South. It moves fluently between epic action scenes, high-quality political intrigue between Korea, China and America, and also has genuinely funny dialogue in places. It’s also fascinating to see a more nuanced take on the political tensions in the region, within and between the countries involved. Rare to see a film of this scale move so deftly. And the whole scene in the obstetrician is wild. Boog1000
Available on Netflix in the US and UK
Perfect Sense
Sorry to recommend a film about an epidemic but … I liked Perfect Sense by David Mackenzie, with Ewan McGregor and Eva Green (Stannis Baratheon shows up as well). It’s a film about
Available on Amazon Prime in the UK and to rent in the US
Aniara
Really enjoyed its bleak outlook at the vastness of space and how cold a spaceship can be. The depiction of humans also works well in our current climate. Worth a watch. Artie_Fufkin
Available to watch on Hulu in the US and on BFI Player or to rent in the UK
An Honest Liar
Great little documentary about a famous magician who became a debunked con artist like Uri Geller and evangelical preacher-healers. There is also some personal drama that plays out as the subject is being interviewed that adds an extra element of intrigue. slicineyeballs
Available on Amazon Prime in the UK and US
Coherence
This is a gem of a low-budget high-quality sci-fi film, with improvised dialogue performed by an all but unknown cast – the only exception being Nicholas Brendon, who brings just a tiny bit of the Xander Harris quips for our entertainment.
A great one to watch without knowing too much about it. If you liked Primer you’ll love it. If you didn’t like Primer then [expletive deleted]. Nesbit101
Available on Amazon Prime and Hulu in the US and on Amazon Prime in the UK
Love & Mercy
Fantastically heartbreaking performances from Paul Dano and John Cusack who play Brian Wilson, both at different but troubled times in his career as he grappled with his deteriorating mental health while producing the album Pet Sounds. Adam2502
Available on BBC iPlayer in the UK and Amazon Prime and Hulu in the US
by of-the-moment designers: Villanelle wearing The Vampire’s Wife in the new season of Killing Eve, say. But this show’s Emmy-nominated costume designer, Lorna Marie Mugan, whose previous credits include the stylish and very influential Peaky Blinders, dressed Marianne in a mix of high street and vintage, with a few pieces from Mugan’s own wardrobe.
The clue to the magic of Normal People is in the name; not the normal part, the people part. Sally Rooney’s fine-grained characterisation of Marianne
is all there on the small screen. It’s in her summer-holiday plimsolls and her washed-out underwear, the protective jumpers she wears to the library and her flimsy, over-exposing party dresses.
If Rooney is the first great millennial novelist, Marianne is the first great millennial TV style icon. The show captures the way young women look now. The one-piece swimming costume instead of the bikini, the bedroom loungewear that spans essay-writing and sleeping. The high-waisted jeans, and the short party dresses. Even Marianne’s slenderness – often mentioned in the book – is accentuated in the modern way, in the looseness of a pair of jeans or the leotard fit of a vest, rather than the old-fashioned methods of darted tailoring, or waist-cinching belts.
Mugan wanted to show how teenage style evolves in the years from adolescence to college. “We didn’t want to just shake off everything that was part of their youth,” she told Grazia about how the clothes changed in Marianne and Connell’s move from Sligo to Dublin. “You take little bits of them with them. You explore how they find themselves as they evolve. Subtlety was the key.” During Marianne’s first year at Trinity, and on that idyllic Italian holiday, she is trying on a new sophistication for size. On a visit home to Sligo the highschool princess contemporaries who still wear their hair in shiny promnight ringlets look calcified next to the modishly tousled Marianne, like once-prized dolls now gathering dust. Trapped at home with her awful family, her wardrobe regresses from Trinity urbanity into cut-off denim skirts and plimsolls.Edgar-Jones told iD magazine that working with Mugan on Marianne’s wardrobe was one of her favourite parts of making Normal People. “It was so fun,” she says. “When the outfit feels right you can adopt the physicality much more easily, because your clothes kind of dictate the way you navigate the world … as [Marianne] ages, she stops needing to be so out there and feels comfortable to wear clothes that fit and feel good.” Perhaps you have more self-control than me and haven’t gulped down the last episodes yet, so I will stop there. But Normal People has the makings of a fashion classic.