In 2008, the first G-20 Summit was convened in response to the global economic shock created by the financial crisis. The establishment of the G-20 was a recognition of the need for international cooperation and solidarity to steer the world through a global emergency.
This coming weekend, as G-20 leaders meet in Rome, they must rediscover their purpose and make more courageous choices to help hard-hit vulnerable countries recover from COVID-19.
Almost two years into the pandemic, the current approach is shortsighted, dangerous, and contrary to the interests of high-income countries. It is time for them to change tack, save lives, and boost economic recovery. By doing so, they can also stop a worrying descent into increased conflict and instability across the world.
Over the past two years, the links between COVID-19 and conflict and instability have become increasingly clear. The findings are alarming. Based on its International Futures model, the University of Denver has told the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that the pandemic could lead to 15 new or resumed armed conflicts before 2023, an increase from previous projections. The global humanitarian system — already dealing with a record level of need — could be overwhelmed as we try to respond to the resulting human suffering at an unprecedented scale.
Either the international community acts to bring countries back from the brink of conflict, or it will permit new conflicts to be unleashed, the impacts of which will be felt for decades.
—The model shows COVID-19 continues to create the socio-economic conditions — such as increased unemployment, poverty, and educational disruption — that fuel conflict and unrest. These conditions create disaffection with governments, open political vacuums, and present opportunities for armed groups to exploit vulnerable people. In 2020, civil unrest rose by 10% and continues to increase this year.
Without further intervention, fragility may get worse. Research by the International Monetary Fund on past pandemics shows that civil unrest peaks two years after the initial outbreak.
Economies in low-income countries are still reeling from the pandemic as they face far more COVID-19 infections and deaths this year compared to 2020. In October, IMF further downgraded the growth forecast of low-income countries, pointing to the slow roll-out of vaccines as the main factor for their poor recovery.
An analysis of IMF data by UNOCHA shows that in half the countries with humanitarian crises, per capita income is not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels until at least 2024 — or long after that for many countries.
Sluggish recovery has weakened governments’ ability to provide basic services, reversed a decade of development progress, and caused poverty rates to soar. The World Bank estimates an additional 97 million people are living in poverty in 2021 due to the pandemic, with the most vulnerable workers hit hardest.
Rising poverty contributed to a 20% increase in the number of people facing hunger in 2020 and a sixfold rise in the number of people facing famine-like conditions in 2021. Four out of 5 people in countries with humanitarian emergencies — almost 1 billion people — lack social protection benefits.
Faced with such desperation, many people will take whatever jobs they can find, no matter how dangerous or exploitative. A study by the United Nations Development Programme found that of the people voluntarily joining armed groups, over half expressed frustration at their economic conditions, with employment cited as the most frequent need at the time of joining.
Armed groups have used the pandemic to seize more power or gain legitimacy with populations. In the central Sahel region, armed groups have a new deliberate recruitment strategy: capitalizing on fewer children in school due to COVID-19 and poorer economic conditions.
In Colombia and Brazil, armed groups and gangs have distributed relief items to gain favor with populations or enforced their own lockdowns and quarantines — at times violently to maintain control. In other places, armed groups such as Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, or the Houthis have undermined government and international health responses by branding COVID-19 as a Western conspiracy or preventing vaccines from entering their territory.
Many armed groups are also fuelled by illicit economies that are now thriving as unemployment rises. In 2020, coca cultivation and cocaine production reached record levels in Colombia and Peru as unemployment brought new people to the market and caused farmers who had begun crop substitution schemes to return to coca production.
The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime anticipates a similar dynamic in the opium poppy market in years to come. The more people who rely on illicit economies controlled by armed groups, the greater power these groups wield over communities, economies, and wider society.
COVID-19 has also wrought devastation over low- and middle-income countries’ basic services. Before the pandemic, education was already in crisis. Then the pandemic hit. In a third of countries with humanitarian emergencies, schools have been closed for more weeks this past academic year than in the first six months of the pandemic.
The failure to adequately educate this current generation is not only a moral travesty; children out of school are more likely to be lured into, exploited by, or forced by necessity to join gangs and armed groups. The same UNDP study referred to above shows that almost 40 of voluntary recruits have only five to 10 years of education.
G-20 leaders can turn the tide by acting decisively in the following three areas.
First, to end the pandemic and ensure economies can recover, we need to get vaccines quickly into the arms of the planet’s most vulnerable people. Over half of countries under a humanitarian crisis cannot vaccinate even 10% of their population. To bring that up to 40% in these countries, we need almost 700 million doses by the year’s end. This must be matched with community-led efforts to help people overcome vaccine hesitancy, including by ensuring vaccines are provided alongside all their humanitarian needs.
Second, high-income countries and international financial institutions need to work together to stabilize the economies of the lower-income countries. The reallocation of Special Drawing Rights from high-income countries to lower-income countries is an important mechanism to provide much-needed funds to stabilize economies.
Public and private creditors need to step in and provide sustainable debt restructuring to stop countries from having to service their debts rather than feed their populations.
Third, we must increase and sustain basic service delivery in humanitarian settings by adequately funding humanitarian appeals. Development actors and international financial institutions play an important role here, but in acute crises, humanitarian agencies are critical to helping deliver basic services. These efforts need to be fully funded. In 2021, less than 40% of the humanitarian funding required to help the world’s most vulnerable 172 million people has been committed.
We still have time to prevent tomorrow’s catastrophes. 2022 will be the deciding year. Either the international community acts to bring countries back from the brink of conflict, or it will permit new conflicts to be unleashed, the impacts of which will be felt for decades.
The choice is ours to make. I urge G-20 leaders to seize this moment.