The avenge of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis unlike any other faced by the United Nations in the last 75 years of history – from killing masses, the spread of human suffrage and people hanging at the verge of their deaths. It can not only be regarded as a health crisis but also attacking various societies of the environment at its core. World’s most powerful vigilant countries with innumerable wealth and war power are kneeling down to bow over countries to fulfil their need for health care and medicines. Superpowers like the United States of America and Europe are among the top countries getting contaminated by the virus with over a lakh of reported cases and thousands of death reports, making it difficult for health workers to even bury the coffins.
Here, the United Nations Secretary-General has now called for an urgent and coordinated response on recovering from the losses and getting stronger with the hardships faced through lives, economy, sustainability and human rights.
That’s when the picture of Sustainable Development Goals come into as it was born by the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development at Rio De Janeiro in 2012. The sole objective of framing it was to produce a set of universal goals that meet the urgent need of economy challenge, environmental and political challenges faced by the world.
The Sustainable Development Goals are a collection of 17 Global goals designed to serve as a blueprint in attaining a better and more sustainable future. As it aims in the attainment of it’s objective by 2030, the sudden spread of the pandemic has flushed its importance to yet higher levels to Reduce Inequality under SDG 10 and Enhancing Peace and Justice with Building Strong institutions under SDG 16.
The main areas where the effect of the pandemic has been the most are health and Economy sector. The COVID-19 has pushed the world economy into recession making it worse than the global financial crisis.
www.theguardian.com/how best to fight the economic impact of coronavirus
www.nytimes.com/opinion-thecoronavirus has put the world economy in recession
www.weforum.org/how does coronavirus affect the economy?
Looking at the recent reports, in the last two weeks of march over 10 million people applied for unemployment benefits only in the US impacting its economy with unprecedented speed and severity. This is marked in the history for the first time as it was not seen even during the Global Financial crisis of 2009. Few reasons in some countries for the decline could be the diminishing demand for domestic as well as manufactured goods referring to as almost half of the world is isolated in their respective homes. The analysis by the UN Department of Economic and Social affairs(DESA) said that the pandemic is disrupting the global Supply chains and International Trade providing a warning about the shrink of the Global Economy by upto 1% in 2020. Further it also mentioned about the worst case scenario of about 0.9% in 2020 in comparison to the hit of 2009 at 1.7%.
Every country in their own vision of attaining goals in regards to economy are trying their best to take measures and avoid the worst case scenario within their own terms. The crux of having a better scenario could be by just maintaining the economic status of people with regular income limits and movement of people around.
Some of the various measures that could be taken to strengthen various Unorganised sector in Economics eclipsed by Global Pandemic are under-
- Need for a better balance between Globalisation and Self-Reliance
- Authority support to provide income to individuals to sustain their lives
- Increase of consumer spending in the market even after the market crash
- Increase in investments and exports among countries
- Offsetting increase in government spending
- Forecast of actual size and efficacy of the fiscal response to the crisis
- Prioritising on the health care and spending on policies
- Balancing different sectors of the country according to needs like retail trade, leisure and hospitality , recreation and transportation services as these jobs account to about a quarter in the economy of nations
- Lower the chances of businesses loosing revenue to decrease the problem of unemployment creating shock at both the supply and demand side of economy
- Creation of fiscal stimulus packages for the supporting the families which are not affected by the infectious disease
- Publishing of Urgent and Bold policies measures not only to save lives but also to provide financial stability in accordance to the economic ruin and sustain economic growth .
- Shift of view towards importing of goods from developing countries should be under
- Developing countries which particularly depend upon the tourism and commodity exports should already start analysing their situation and develop solutions to cope up with the economic decline due to the restrain of travellers. Also keeping in view about the millions of low skilled workers involved and their
- As governments are facing decline in commodity revenues and reversal of capital flows causing the distress of debt , it would soon lead to curtail public spending
- Support to the most vulnerable part of the society
- Instructing people to get most of the work done at home as much as possible with the support of the technology to soar economy .
Above were some of the most reasonably practical and applicable points that could be taken into consideration by nations following the status quo of maintaining equality among the different income groups of the country and serving there needs.
www.theatlantic.com/the new laws of pandemic economics
www.thehindu.com/impact of COVID-19 on the global economy
While coronavirus emerged as an health crisis but soon translated into an economic crisis bringing the global economy to its toes. The answer to this could be divided into two methods that stifled the economic activity . First, the spread of the virus encouraged individuals to practice social distancing which further lead to shutting of financial and trade markets , corporate offices , businesses and events . Second, the uncertainty how bad the situation could get led to flight of safety consumption and investment among consumers , investors and international traders. The approval and tracing of the paths according to the real world observation in accessing the restrictive measures , monetary policy measures , fiscal policy measures and public health measures that were adopted during the period . Therefore, the imposition of restrictions on internal movement and higher fiscal policy spending had a positive impact on the level of economic activities although the increasing number of confirmed coronavirus cases did not significantly affected the economy when the preventive measures did.
Being united, keeping nerves calm, taking calculated actions, learning about new possibilities and encouraging others from a distance can all solider in balancing the economy from private levels.
Helping the lower privileged band of earners according to our level of servings can help in attaining the Sustainable development Goal of United Nations by 2030 against the pandemic by maintaining the consumer spending and income levels through Equality in Humanity.
Written By – Tanisha Jhumuna