How the IMF Continues to Change To Confront Global Challenges
From COVID-19 to climate change, economies are facing new challenges.
Coming Together
By Vitor Gaspar and Gita Gopinath
عربي, Español, Français, Português, Русский
Differences in vaccine access and the ability to deploy policy support are creating a growing divergence between advanced economies from many emerging market and developing economies. Faced with high deficits and historic levels of debt, countries with limited access to financing are walking a fiscal tightrope between providing adequate support and preserving financial stability. […]
Stepping Up to Meet Low-Income Countries’ Pandemic Recovery Needs
By Christian Mumssen and Seán Nolan
عربي, 中文, Español, 日本語, Português, Русский
Low-income countries have been hard hit by the pandemic. Their large financing needs are only likely to grow as they deal with the crisis and its economic aftermath. […]
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals Will Require Extraordinary Effort by All
by Dora Benedek, Edward Gemayel, Abdelhak Senhadji, and Alexander Tieman
عربي, 中文, Español, Français, 日本語, Português, Русский
The pandemic’s impact on the world’s poor has been especially harsh. COVID-19 may have pushed about 100 million people into extreme poverty in 2020 alone, while the UN warns that in some regions poverty could rise to levels not seen in 30 years. The current crisis has derailed progress toward basic development goals, as low-income developing countries must now balance urgent spending to protect lives and livelihoods […]
Slow-Healing Scars: The Pandemic’s Legacy
By Sonali Das and Philippe Wingender
عربي, 中文, Español, Français, 日本語, Português, Русский
Recessions wreak havoc and the damage is often long-lived. Businesses shut down, investment spending is cut, and people out of work can lose skills and motivation as the months stretch on. […]
How COVID-19 Will Increase Inequality in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies
By Gabriela Cugat and Futoshi Narita
عربي, 中文, Español, Français, 日本語, Português, Русский
Emerging markets and developing economies grew consistently in the two decades before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, allowing for much-needed gains in poverty reduction and life expectancy. The crisis now puts much of that progress at risk while further widening the gap between rich and poor.
Despite the pre-pandemic gains in poverty reduction and lifespans, many of these countries have struggled to reduce income inequality. At the same time, they saw persistently high shares of inactive youth (i.e., those not in employment, education, or training), wide inequality in education, and large gaps remaining in economic opportunities for women. COVID-19 is expected to make inequality even worse than past crises since measures to contain the pandemic have had disproportionate effects on vulnerable workers and women.
As part of our latest World Economic Outlook we explore two facts about the current pandemic to estimate its effect on inequality: a person’s ability to work from home and the drop in GDP expected for most countries in the world.
The impact of where you work
First, the ability to work from home has been key during the pandemic. A […]
