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Aid Groups Call for Worldwide COVID-19 Bailout Amid Fears of Mass Hunger

Alan Macleod

July 18, 2020: The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have already devastated the world. Over 14 million people have tested positive for the virus, and nearly 600,000 have died since it was first identified in December. And cases continue to rise: yesterday saw 248,998 people test positive – an all-time high. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the crisis is “not even close” to being resolved.

But the human cost from the economic fallout could be worse than the virus itself, as the world plunges into a deep and possibly prolonged recession which will lead to disease and starvation across the global south.

That is why international charity Oxfam is calling on the international community to agree to its proposal of an “Economic Rescue Package for All.” The package entails six key features that it hopes to lay out across the world, including:

• Mass cash grants to all that need them – The plan does not call for a universal basic income, but does stipulate that mass subsidies may be needed to keep the poor from hunger, keep the self-employed afloat, and more.
• A responsible business bailout package – In contrast to the 2008 bailout that saw large corporations rewarded for their recklessness, the plan states that small businesses should be given priority, that the funds must be used to primarily meet payroll, and that companies involved in fossil fuel extraction should not be bailed out at all.
• The suspension and cancellation of debt – After 2008, poor nations were forced into implementing harsh austerity measures to meet their payments. This cannot be allowed to happen again.
• Issue Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) – The International Monetary Fund created SDRs as a means to give countries more leeway to spend money on vital public services. They should be used here too.
• A new international aid package – Many of the poorest countries desperately need international aid to help them overcome the current medical and economic crisis.
• Emergency wealth taxes – To pay for this, new levies on financial transactions, luxury goods, excess corporate profits and private wealth should be implemented.

The consequences of inaction will be extremely serious; “As many as 12,000 people could die every day from COVID-linked hunger, which is more than those dying daily from the virus itself,” warned Abby Maxman, President of Oxfam America. On Monday, the United Nations released its 2020 edition of its State of Food Security and Nutrition report, estimating that a minimum of 83 million extra people, and possibly as many as 132 million worldwide will go hungry as a consequence of the coronavirus-related economic collapse that will disrupt commerce, supply lines and economic activity. The number of hungry people in the world has increased by around 60 million in the last five years, and the United Nations’ goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by 2030 appears increasingly impossible.

The World Health Organization and UNICEF also expressed deep concern over the “alarming decline” of children’s immunization programs over the past four months, with three-quarters of all countries surveyed reporting disruptions in their immunization drives. “COVID-19 has made previously routine vaccination a daunting challenge,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore, warning of potential epidemics of preventable diseases due to the disruption, “we cannot trade one health crisis for another.”

Many see the disruption caused by the pandemic as an opportunity to redesign society for the better, implementing more sustainable forms of food production and mass transit. Oxfam describes the moment as a “once in a generation chance to build a fairer world.” However, it appears that currently, the pandemic is being used by those in power to further their own agendas. 82 percent of the benefits of Trump’s CARES Act, for example, went to those already earning at least $1 million per year, with less than three percent going to the great majority earning under $100,000 annually. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, total billionaire wealth has increased by $584 billion since the lockdown in mid-March. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is also taking the opportunity to force through “revolutionary” change in the state’s public schools, his plan sounding very much like a privatization drive. Which direction the world will ultimately take remains to be seen.

(Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. He has also contributed to several other publications, and has also written several books.)

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Virus-Linked Hunger Tied to 10,000 Child Deaths Each Month

Countercurrents Collective

29 July 2020: All around the world, the coronavirus and its restrictions are pushing already hungry communities over the edge, cutting off meager farms from markets and isolating villages from food and medical aid. Virus-linked hunger is leading to the deaths of 10,000 more children a month over the first year of the pandemic, according to an urgent call to action from the United Nations shared with The Associated Press ahead of its publication in the Lancet medical journal.

Further, more than 550,000 additional children each month are being struck by what is called wasting, according to the U.N. — malnutrition that manifests in spindly limbs and distended bellies. Over a year, that is up 6.7 million from last year’s total of 47 million. Wasting and stunting can permanently damage children physically and mentally, transforming individual tragedies into a generational catastrophe.

“The food security effects of the COVID crisis are going to reflect many years from now,” said Dr. Francesco Branca, the World Health Organization head of nutrition. “There is going to be a societal effect.”

The July 28, 2020 AP report said:

“From Latin America to South Asia to sub-Saharan Africa, more families than ever are staring down a future without enough food. The analysis published Monday found about 128,000 more young children will die over the first 12 months of the virus.

“In April, World Food Program head David Beasley warned that the coronavirus economy would cause global famines ‘of biblical proportions’ this year. There are different stages of what is known as food insecurity; famine is officially declared when, along with other measures, 30% of the population suffers from wasting.

“The rise in child deaths worldwide would reverse global progress for the first time in decades. Deaths of children younger than 5 had declined steadily since 1980, to 5.3 million around the world in 2018, according to a UNICEF report. About 45 percent of the deaths were due to undernutrition.

“The leaders of four international agencies — the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization — have called for at least $2.4 billion immediately to address hunger. Even more than the money, restrictions on movement need to be eased so that families can seek treatment, said Victor Aguayo, the head of UNICEF’s nutrition program.

The report added:

“Some of the worst hunger still occurs in sub-Saharan Africa. In Sudan, 9.6 million people are living from one meal to the next in acute food insecurity — a 65% increase from the same time last year.

“Lockdowns across Sudanese provinces, as around the world, have dried up work and incomes for millions. The global economic downturn has brought supply chains to a standstill, and restrictions on public transport have disrupted agricultural production. With inflation hitting 136%, prices for basic goods have more than tripled.

“‘It has never been easy but now we are starving, eating grass, weeds, just plants from the earth,’ said Ibrahim Youssef, director of the Kalma camp for internally displaced people in war-ravaged south Darfur.

“Long before the pandemic hit, Sudan’s economy had plummeted, especially after the oil-rich south seceded in 2011. Decades of economic mismanagement under Omar al-Bashir led to a surge in food prices, and the transitional government now in power has struggled to stop the tailspin.

“Natural disasters are making the situation even worse. The country’s production of grain has dropped by 57% compared to last year, largely due to pests and seasonal floods. And swarms of desert locusts have already infested three Sudanese provinces, threatening more losses to farmers.

“Internally displaced people in the restive provinces of Darfur, Kassala and Kordofan have been hit hardest, and the poorest say they can barely afford one meal a day.

“‘I don’t have the basics I need to survive,’ said Zakaria Yehia Abdullah, 67, a farmer in the Krinding camp in West Darfur, who hasn’t worked the fields since authorities imposed a partial lockdown in April and local militias escalated attacks. ‘That means the 10 people counting on me can’t survive either.’

“Before the pandemic and lockdown, his family ate three meals a day, sometimes with bread, or they’d add butter to porridge. Now they are down to just one meal, in the morning, of ‘millet porridge’ — water mixed with grain. He said the hunger is showing ‘in my children’s faces.’

“Adam Haroun, a Krinding camp official, recorded nine deaths linked with malnutrition, otherwise a rare occurrence, over the past two months — five newborns and four older adults, he said.

“To mitigate the crisis, the government, with support from the World Bank, is rolling out a $1.9 billion cash transfer program to Sudan’s neediest families. But many residents of Sudan’s long-neglected regions remain skeptical that authorities can alleviate their suffering.

“‘The hunger here is not any normal hunger,’ said Adam Gomaa, a local activist in Kabkabiya, North Darfur, who helps run displacement camps in the area.

“Back in Burkina Faso, COVID-19 restrictions are also hitting hard, keeping families like that of 14-year-old Nafissetou Niampa from the market. Niampa lay face down on a bed at the Yalgado Ouedraogo University Hospital in the capital, Ouagadougou, fanned by her mother. The teenager has a heart condition that affects her breathing and now is shedding weight as well.

“‘Before the disease we didn’t have anything,’ said Aminata Mande, her mother. ‘Now with the disease we don’t have anything also.’

“Burkina Faso was already facing a growing food crisis, with rising violence linked to militants cutting families off from their farms. With the advent of the coronavirus, the government closed markets, restricted movement and shut down public transport, making it much harder for traders to buy and sell food.

“While malnutrition deaths routinely rise during the four-month wait for the next harvest in October, this year is worse than anyone can remember, according to physicians and aid workers. On the World Food Program’s hunger map, nearly all of Burkina Faso is a red zone of need.

“Even though the Tuy province produces the most corn in the country, food there is not reaching those who need it most. In Tuy between March and April, the number of underweight newborns increased by 40%, signifying that the mothers were most likely malnourished during pregnancy, said Joseph Ouattara, chief doctor at the hospital in the small town of Hounde.

“Child deaths due to malnutrition are also escalating. In a normal year, an average of 19 children die from malnutrition in Tuy. But in the first five and a half months of this year alone, the number of children dying from what appears to be malnutrition is already up to 20 just at the province’s central hospital in the main town of Hounde.

“Ernestine Belembongo, a 37-year-old trader with a stand at the Hounde market, was unable to buy or sell food for weeks, so there has been no fish or meat for her five children since March. Her 3-year-old daughter is swiftly losing weight, and even though most of the COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted, Belembongo still serves her family only grain.

“‘I’m worried about the lean season,’ she said. ‘I have many kids and no money.’”

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Almost 10 Million Children May Never to Return School After the Pandemic

Countercurrents Collective

14 July 2020: The coronavirus pandemic has caused an “unprecedented education emergency” with up to 9.7 million children affected by school closures at risk of never going back to class, warned Save the Children Monday.

The British charity cited UNESCO data showing that in April, 1.6 billion young people were shut out of school and university due to measures to contain COVID-19 – about 90 percent of the world’s entire student population.

The charity’s report said: “For the first time in human history, an entire generation of children globally have had their education disrupted.”

The report listed 12 countries where children are most at risk of falling behind: Niger, Mali, Chad, Liberia, Afghanistan, Guinea, Mauritania, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Before the crisis, an estimated 258 million children and adolescents were already missing out on school, the charity said.

The report said the economic fall-out of the crisis could force an extra 90 to 117 million children into poverty, with a knock-on effect on school admissions.

With many young people required to work or girls forced into early marriage to support their families, this could see between seven and 9.7 million children dropping out of school permanently.

At the same time, the charity warned the crisis could leave a shortfall of $77 billion in education budgets in low and middle-income countries by the end of 2021.

The report said:

• World is facing a hidden education emergency.
• COVID-19 leaves estimated $77 billion gap in education spending for world’s poorest children.
• Children in 12 countries are at extremely high risk of dropping out of school forever.
• In another 28 countries, children are at moderate or high risk of not going back to school.
• Girls are at increased exposure to gender-based violence and risk of child marriage and teen pregnancy during school closures.

“Around 10 million children may never return to school — this is an unprecedented education emergency and governments must urgently invest in learning,” Save the Children chief executive Inger Ashing said.

“Instead we are at risk of unparalleled budget cuts which will see existing inequality explode between the rich and the poor, and between boys and girls.”

The charity urged governments and donors to invest more funds behind a new global education plan to help children back into school when it is safe and until then support distance learning.

“We know the poorest, most marginalized children who were already the furthest behind have suffered the greatest loss, with no access to distance learning – or any kind of education – for half an academic year,” Ashing said.

Save the Children also urged commercial creditors to suspend debt repayments for low-income countries – a move it said could free up $14 billion for education programs.

“If we allow this education crisis to unfold, the impact on children’s futures will be long lasting,” Ashing said.

“The promise the world has made to ensure all children have access to a quality education by 2030, will be set back by years,” she said, citing the UN goal.

(Countercurrents.org is an India-based news, views and analysis website, that takes a side – the Side of the People! Its founding editor is Binu Mathew.)