Pandemic’s economic fallout will worsen conflicts: UN diplomats
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Monday
January 30, 2023

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 2023
Pandemic’s economic fallout will worsen conflicts: UN diplomats

World+Biz

BSS/AFP
04 August, 2020, 11:20 am
Last modified: 04 August, 2020, 02:55 pm

Related News

  • Both North and South Korea violated armistice with drone flights, UN command says
  • More challenges for Bangladesh, South Asia as global economic growth to fall in 2023: UN
  • Myanmar opium cultivation surging under military rule - UN report
  • UN forecasts fall in global economic growth to 1.9% in 2023
  • Top UN officials seek to 'water down' bans on women in Afghanistan

Pandemic’s economic fallout will worsen conflicts: UN diplomats

Lockdowns are restricting the movements of envoys, peacekeeping troops and non-governmental agencies, hindering mediation efforts and impeding the distribution of desperately needed aid to increasingly vulnerable civilians

BSS/AFP
04 August, 2020, 11:20 am
Last modified: 04 August, 2020, 02:55 pm
Photo: Collected
Photo: Collected

The coronavirus pandemic is worsening the humanitarian situation in the world's deadliest conflicts and threatens to unleash economic devastation that will intensify violence, United Nations diplomats and experts warn.

Covid-19 is hampering aid programs, diverting the attention and resources of major powers battling the deadly virus at home, and cutting remittances to already fragile, war-weary economies, they say.

"There's a very high level of concern that its economic impact is going to spark more disorder, more conflict," said New York-based UN expert Richard Gowan.

"We're still only really in the opening act of quite a long drama," he told AFP.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres's plea for a global ceasefire back in March has gone largely unheeded, with fighting continuing to rage in hotspots such as Yemen, Libya and Syria.

Lockdowns are restricting the movements of envoys, peacekeeping troops and non-governmental agencies, hindering mediation efforts and impeding the distribution of desperately needed aid to increasingly vulnerable civilians.

In Yemen — where tens of thousands of civilians have died since 2015 in what the UN describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis — fighting is intensifying, according to diplomats who say the country is in free fall.

"Famine is again on the horizon. Conflict is again escalating. The economy is again in tatters. Humanitarian agencies are again nearly broke. And then the new problems — COVID-19 is spreading out of control," UN relief chief Mark Lowcock said last week.

The British diplomat told the UN Security Council that the coronavirus crisis had slashed remittances, which has long been a lifeline for the country, by as much as 70 percent.

He cited a recent survey that found that about half of Yemeni families have lost at least 50 per cent of their income since April.

"Help Yemen now or watch the country fall into the abyss," he implored.

Lowcock also reported depressing economic news from Syria, whose economy has been devastated by almost a decade of civil war.

He said lockdown measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 was one factor in the Syrian economy expecting to contract by more than seven percent this year.

– 'Bleak and depressing' –

The diplomat added that job losses in recent months have increased unemployment from 42 percent last year to close to 50 percent now.

Diplomats say western governments are reducing the amount of aid they send to humanitarian crisis zones as they focus on getting their own coronavirus-battered economies up and running again.

Analysts say it has also taken the steam out of peace efforts as mediators swap face-to-face meetings for Zoom and Skype calls.

In January, at a summit hosted by Germany in Berlin, world leaders committed to ending all foreign meddling in Libya's civil war and to uphold a weapons embargo as part of a plan to end the nine-year conflict.

But last month Guterres denounced "unprecedented levels" of interference in the war-torn country, where Russia and Turkey back rival factions.

"Now obviously Germany's focus is on propping up the European economy," said Gowan, of the International Crisis Group think-tank.

Experts are also watching with close concern Lebanon, currently mired in its worst economic crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war, with runaway inflation and bank capital controls fuelling poverty, despair and angry street protests.

"It's a pretty bleak and depressing picture across the board," a UN diplomat told AFP.

"The economic fallout is just going to exacerbate conflict in those countries," he added.

Coronavirus chronicle / Top News

UN / pandemic

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Photo: Collected
    Economic slump drags down growth in VAT collection from big cos
  • It's corruption that bites business harder: CPD
    It's corruption that bites business harder: CPD
  • Foreign Minister of Argentina Santiago Cafiero with Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abdul Momen. File Photo: Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs
    Argentina set to open embassy in Bangladesh on 27 Feb

MOST VIEWED

  • A woman on a mobility scooter drives past a mural praising the NHS (National Health Service) amidst the continuation of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, London, Britain, March 5, 2021. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
    Hundreds of thousands of UK healthcare workers balloted for strikes
  • Former Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan. Photo: Collected
    Imran Khan to contest from 33 seats in Pakistan National Assembly bypoll
  • Chief Executive of oil producer Rosneft Igor Sechin attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia February 15, 2021. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS/File Photo
    Russia's Sechin says Taiwan will return to China 'on schedule'
  • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks at the Commonwealth Business Forum at the International Convention Centre (ICC), in Birmingham, Britain, July 28, 2022. Peter Byrne/Pool via REUTERS
    'Don't want to hurt you': Boris Johnson's shocking revelations on Vladimir Putin
  • China's and U.S.' flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
    China says willing to communicate with US military but 'red lines' should be respected
  • FILE PHOTO: Indian billionaire Gautam Adani speaks during an interview with Reuters at his office in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad April 2, 2014. Picture taken April 2, 2014. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
    India's Adani hits back at Hindenburg, insists made full disclosure

Related News

  • Both North and South Korea violated armistice with drone flights, UN command says
  • More challenges for Bangladesh, South Asia as global economic growth to fall in 2023: UN
  • Myanmar opium cultivation surging under military rule - UN report
  • UN forecasts fall in global economic growth to 1.9% in 2023
  • Top UN officials seek to 'water down' bans on women in Afghanistan

Features

Photo: Courtesy

The Hawkers: Where minimalism meets motifs

2h | Brands
Illustration: TBS

Where do Shariah-compliant mutual funds stand in Bangladesh

1h | Panorama
Sketch: TBS

A subsidy war without winners

57m | Panorama
Photo: Collected

Oppo Reno 8T first look revealed!

1h | Brands

More Videos from TBS

Pakistan plunges into economic mess

Pakistan plunges into economic mess

7m | TBS World
Shahrukh's 'Pathaan' has been making records ever since its release

Shahrukh's 'Pathaan' has been making records ever since its release

12m | TBS Entertainment
How will Bangladesh pay for massive upcoming power projects this year?

How will Bangladesh pay for massive upcoming power projects this year?

12m | TBS Insight
Sarika Sabrin is waiting for a good film

Sarika Sabrin is waiting for a good film

16h | TBS Entertainment

Most Read

1
Picture: Collected
Bangladesh

US Embassy condemns recent incidents of visa fraud

2
Illustration: TBS
Banking

16 banks at risk of capital shortfall if top 3 borrowers default

3
Bapex calls candidates for job test 9 years after advert!
Bangladesh

Bapex calls candidates for job test 9 years after advert!

4
Photo: Collected
Splash

Hansal Mehta responds as Twitter user calls him 'shameless' for making Faraaz

5
A frozen Beyond Burger plant-based patty. Photographer: AKIRA for Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Special

Fake meat was supposed to save the world. It became just another fad

6
Representational Image
Banking

Cash-strapped Islami, Al-Arafah and National turn to Sonali Bank for costly fund

EMAIL US
[email protected]
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2023
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - [email protected]

For advertisement- [email protected]