The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) is again appealing to the world's richest nations to contribute more money to aid the world's poorest nations, especially those in Africa, combat the COVID-19 scourge. UNOCHA is the UN body whose job is to strengthen the international response to complex emergencies and natural disasters.
UNOCHA made this renewed appeal mindful of the painful fact developed nations are seeing their economies brought close to collapse by the devastating damage wrought by the global pandemic. It has no other choice, however. Poor countries are suffering even more greatly and have fewer resources to combat the disease.
"Unless we act now, we should be prepared for a series of human tragedies, more brutal and more destructive than any of the direct impacts of the virus itself," contends Mark Lowcock, Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and head of UNOCHA.
Lowcock said inaction from world leaders will leave the coronavirus free to circle the globe and undo decades of development. This failure will also create decades' worth of tragic and exportable problems.
To assist poorer nations, UNOCHA has put in place the "COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan" (HRP) launched last March. This plan aims to enable UNOCHA to fight covid-19 in the world's poorest countries, and address the needs of the most vulnerable people.
Lowcock asked rich countries to contribute $10.3 billion to the HRP. Thus far, HRP has received only $1.7 billion from donors. Lowcock argues the severe problems confronting poor countries when it comes to COVID-19 can be fixed with money and leadership from the world's wealthier nations and some fresh thinking.
"We estimate that the cost of protecting the poorest 10% of the global population from the worst effects of the pandemic and global recession is about $90 billion," according to Lowcock. "That's less than 1% of the stimulus package wealthy countries have put in place to protect the global economy," he pointed out.
On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said COVID-19 isn't just a humanitarian issue. It argues unless the disease is controlled everywhere "it is a risk everywhere and it will continue to threaten the world economically and it will continue to threaten the world politically until we get rid of this virus or bring it under sustained control."
"I appeal to governments to strongly support this plan, which will help stem the impact of COVID-19 in already vulnerable humanitarian contexts," said António Guterres, UN Secretary-General. "I also call on all donors and partners to maintain core support to programs for the most vulnerable, including through UN-coordinated humanitarian and refugee response plans."
HRP has three strategic priorities: contain the spread of the pandemic and decrease morbidity and mortality; decrease the deterioration of human assets and rights, social cohesion and livelihoods and protect, assist and advocate for refugees, internally displaced people, migrants and host communities particularly vulnerable to the pandemic.
