8.3 million Arabs are threatened by poverty due to Coruna

According to Reuters, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) explained in a study published by the Corona Virus: Reducing the impact of the epidemic on poverty and food insecurity in the Arab region that the number of poor will rise in the Arab region with an additional 8.3 million people in poverty. .

She cautioned that, as a result, it is expected that the number of undernourished people will also increase by about two million.

Based on these estimates, the committee stated that a total of 101.4 million people in the region will be classified as poor, and the number of undernourished will be approximately 52 million.

In a statement, the Executive Secretary of the Committee, Rola Dashti, considered that the consequences of this crisis will be severe for groups at risk, especially women, youth, young women, and workers in the informal sector, who do not benefit from social protection services or from unemployment insurance.

She stressed that Arab governments must implement an urgent and urgent response in order to protect their people from falling into poverty and food insecurity as a result of the consequences of the Coruna epidemic.

Arab countries lose, according to the committee, about $ 60 billion annually due to food loss and waste, while reducing these two phenomena by 50% would increase household income by at least $ 20 billion, and enable the region to improve the level of food availability significantly, Reducing food imports and improving trade balances.

The ESCWA Committee estimated, Wednesday, after it warned two weeks ago that Covid-19 could cause the loss of more than 1.7 million jobs in the Arab world.

And I expected the GDP of the Arab countries to decline by no less than 42 billion dollars this year due to the drop in oil prices and the repercussions of the outbreak of the new Corona virus.