WHO published its World health statistics report 2025, revealing the deeper health impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on loss of lives, longevity and overall health and well-being. In just two years, between 2019 and 2021, global life expectancy fell by 1.8 years—the largest drop in recent history— reversing a …
Healthcare systems are at the frontline of delivering critical care during emergencies. Yet, already before the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries were struggling to meet even routine demands for health care. Climate change, disasters, pandemics, and demographic changes will increase pressures on already strained health systems. To strengthen the resilience of …
This brief argues that the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic provides renewed urgency for African countries to invest in the inadequate physical infrastructure for basic services such as healthcare, clean water, and sanitation. Investing in basic services infrastructure now can deliver a huge social and economic value, while making the …
One year on from the start of the coronavirus pandemic, many of the fears about the increase in hunger and poverty have been confirmed. Analyses by international institutions including the United Nations and the World Bank show just how devastating the pandemic has been on the global sustainable development goals …
Around 1 in 8 countries globally spends more on debt than on social services, according to a UNICEF report. COVID-19 and the Looming Debt Crisis notes that 25 countries globally – the majority of them already burdened by poverty and deprivation – spent a higher proportion of total government expenditure …
This paper assesses the socioeconomic impacts of Covid-19 in three South Asian economies -- Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka -- and corresponding fiscal policy responses to mitigate these impacts. Further, it appraises the sufficiency of these fiscal policy responses to support the economic recovery in respective economies. It also estimates fiscal …
The COVID-19 pandemic is having far-reaching impacts on how people earn a living and meet critical needs. The Caribbean COVID-19 Food Security and Livelihoods Impact Survey was launched by CARICOM to rapidly gather data on impacts to livelihoods, food security and access to markets.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on the world’s population. Although it has been established that children are at lower risk of falling seriously ill with COVID-19, the pandemic has had, and continues to have, far-reaching effects on them. The pandemic poses a health crisis that has become …
This paper considers different approaches to modelling the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic/lockdown shocks. Review different modelling strategies and argue that, given the nature of the bottom-up recession caused by the pandemic/lockdowns, simulation models of the shocks should be based on a social accounting matrix (SAM) that includes both …
This paper summarizes unprecedented adverse health and economic impacts as well as policy responses in the Asia and Pacific region and the rest of the world generated by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. By the end of 2020, over 80 million people had been infected, with developing Asia …
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) can be described as the quintessential One Health issue: it involves humans, animals and the environment. It is also a multisectoral food safety problem whose effects transcend borders. With such an interlinked context, legislation that has an impact on AMR is crucial to combat the issue, and …
This study will address the evidence gap of changes in women’s empowerment in their households and women’s diet diversity in rural Bangladesh against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, it will investigate the way and the extent to which women’s income earning abilities, women’s decision-making power with regard …
Child malnutrition estimates for the indicators stunting, wasting, overweight and underweight describe the magnitude and patterns of under- and overnutrition. UNICEF-WHO-WB Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates inter-agency group updates regularly the global and regional estimates in prevalence and numbers for each indicator. The key findings 2021 Edition includes global and regional …
Gender equality has been increasingly recognized as being essential to the process of sustainable development and the formulation of effective national development policies and programmes. Gender statistics and indicators are important tools for promoting gender equality and implementing a gender mainstreaming approach throughout the entire policy cycle. The demand for …
In the present endeavour, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has brought out a statistical publication namely, ‘Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan) in India- A Statistical Profile: 2021’, based on the findings of recent National Sample Survey of Persons with Disabilities and Census of India 2011. The publication presents …
Inequalities in addressing AIDS threaten global efforts to stamp out the disease as a public health threat by 2030, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in a report published, which provides 10 key recommendations to get the world back on track. Despite action and progress against HIV in some places and …
The aim of this report is to estimate the impact of air pollution on health in contemporary Accra, Ghana. Accra is a city that has experienced rapid growth in the last decades. According to the last available census, in 2010, the total population of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) …
Another generation of women will have to wait for gender parity, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021. As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be felt, closing the global gender gap has increased by a generation from 99.5 years to 135.6 years.
NITI Aayog released a report outlining the range of investment opportunities in various segments of India’s healthcare sector, including hospitals, medical devices and equipment, health insurance, telemedicine, home healthcare and medical value travel. India’s healthcare industry has been growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of around 22% since 2016. …
UN-Habitat’s new report - Cities and Pandemics: Towards a more just, green and healthy future – demonstrates how cities can reduce the impact of future pandemics and become more equitable, healthy and environmentally friendly. Urban areas have been at the forefront of the COVID-19 crisis, with 95 per cent of …
To assess the impact of COVID-19 on firms, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation conducted Business Pulse Surveys in several countries, including six in the South Asia region. Analysis focusing on the South Asia region suggests that, first, firms in the South Asia region have suffered disproportionately more …
