COVID-19: Poverty in Pakistan expected to worsen, claims World Bank report – Gulf News

The World Bank report states there are considerable downside risks to the outlook of Pakistans economy with the most significant being a possible resurgence of coronavirus. Image Credit: Reuters

Islamabad: A World Bank report fearing the worst recession in Pakistan over the next two years has warned an increase in poverty coupled with muted and uncertain economic recovery owing to adverse impacts of COVID-19.

The report says Pakistans economy has been severely impacted by measures taken to contain the pandemic. Economic activity contracted and poverty is likely to have risen in FY20, as monetary and fiscal policy tightening, earlier in the year, was followed by lockdowns.

Key findings of the new report released estimate that 930,000 additional children are expected to drop out from both primary and secondary education.

Speaking ahead of the report launch on Wednesday Hartwig Schafer, World Banks vice president for the South Asia region, said: The collapse of South Asian economies during Covid-19 has been more brutal than anticipated, worst of all for small businesses and informal workers who suffer sudden job losses and vanishing wages.

In Pakistan as many as 22 million children are already out of school, and this represents an increase of almost 4.2 per cent of Pakistans student population.

Major impact

While the real impact of the pandemic on various sectors has yet to be ascertained, one of the major impacts is the highest expected dropout rates of children from school in Pakistan due to fears of coronavirus.

Pakistan is globally the country where we expect the highest dropouts due to the COVID-19 crisis in relative terms, says the report.

The estimate is based on the observed income elasticity of education for various socio-economic quintiles and is based on the June 2020 growth estimates for Pakistan which were estimated to be negative 4.4 per cent.

The report says the loss of 930,000 children from the school system translates into an increase of 1.3 percentage points in the share of children out of school given that there are 65 million school-age children in the country. This means that the share of children out of school will go up from 27.3 per cent to 28.6 per cent.

The report says that learning poverty will go up to 79 per cent, whereas the level of learning poor in Pakistan was already high at 75 per cent, based on official government data.

Meanwhile, the National Institute of Health (NIH) has advised health authorities to declare high alert due to possibility of rapid spread of seven diseases including COVID-19 during winter season.

Rapidly spread

In an advisory called Seasonal Awareness and Alert Letter (Saal) it has been informed that the diseases such as COVID-19, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever virus, dengue fever, diphtheria, pertussis, seasonal flu and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) typhoid can spread rapidly during October to February.

According to a statement issued by the NIH, the main purpose of SAAL is to alert all health authorities and professionals concerned at all levels for timely and efficient response to the outbreaks/epidemics.

Pakistan on Thursday reported 316,934 confirmed cases of coronavirus, 583 in last twenty-four hours and 6,544 deaths, nine casualties in last day. The number of recoveries in Pakistan crossed 302,375 while there are 497 critical cases in the country.

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COVID-19: Poverty in Pakistan expected to worsen, claims World Bank report - Gulf News