Covid 19

COVID-19 has unleashed a pandemic of unimaginable proportions. Millions, and particularly the most vulnerable in society, have been stricken by the virus. In early October the World Bank estimated that by 2021 an additional 110 to 150 million people will have fallen into extreme poverty, living on less than US$1.90 per day.

Point persons

Intro

Unfortunately, the vaccine saga that played out at the G20 Summit in November 2020 became another disappointing example of the repeated failure of the richest economies of the world to take concrete steps to ensure the rest of the world would be equipped to tackle the pandemic. 2 Soon after the World Health Organisation warned that the Corona virus outbreak was turning into a pandemic on 11 March 2020, it became clearer that the world was on the brink of facing an unprecedented crisis.3 A large group of low and middle-income countries who were already struggling with unsustainable levels of debt, would find it impossible to deal with the health crisis while continuing to service their debts. Research by Eurodad published on 2 April pointed out that a suspension of official bilateral debt payments in 2020 and emergency funding would still result in an estimated US$9.4 billion of emergency funding to be diverted to debt repayments.

Covid-19 has unleashed a crisis of unimaginable proportions. In this compilation of reports and briefings released throughout 2020, we review the impact of the pandemic on debt and development finance.

Read the book in English, French and Spanish.

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