Coronavirus

(asked on 25th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the report by Oxfam The Inequality Virus, published on 25 January, what assessment they have made of the implications for UK public policy of the finding that the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to increase economic inequality in almost every country.


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

The impacts of COVID-19 are widespread and severe and are deepening inequalities. COVID-19 is likely to have resulted in over 140 million additional people living in extreme poverty in 2020 - around 2% of the global population - and many more will have temporarily fallen below the poverty line.

The UK is at the forefront of the international response, committing up to £1.3 billion of new ODA funding 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 reprogrammed over 300 existing programmes to respond to the challenges created by COVID-19 and supported the multilateral development banks to make over $200 billion available to developing countries.

We will use our G7 and COP26 Presidencies this year to drive a green, fair and inclusive economic recovery and help countries to build back better from COVID-19.

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