Developing Countries: Coronavirus

(asked on 25th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty rates in the global south.


Answered by
 Portrait
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 8th February 2021

COVID-19 is likely to have resulted in over 140 million additional people living in extreme poverty - around 2% of the global population - and many more will have temporarily fallen below the poverty line. This is a seven-year reversal in progress to reduce poverty.

But the UK is at the forefront of the international response, committing up to £1.3 billion of new ODA to counter the health, economic, and humanitarian impacts of COVID-19, including mobilising COVAX to provide vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. We have also reprogrammed over 300 existing programmes to respond to the challenges created by COVID-19, and are supporting the multilateral development banks to make over £200 billion of financing available to developing countries. The UK is also playing a key role in setting the agenda for a longer-term recovery through our Presidency of the G7 in 2021.

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