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COVID-19 is an opening to think about how societies might center justice and equity in efforts to build back better. Governments should take this opportunity to invest in structural changes to reduce persistent inequities in food access due to poverty, health outcomes, decent work and overall wellbeing, especially for racialized communities and migrants.The COVID-19 pandemic has hit at a time when microfinance is at its historical peak, with an estimated 139 million microfinance customers globally. Cambodia's microfinance sector is one of the fastest growing, and like others in the Global South has moved from offering entrepreneurial capital to everyday liquidity, and even disaster relief. In this Viewpoint, however, we argue that the promotion of microfinance as market-based relief and recovery from the pandemic should be a source of concern, not comfort. We firstly suggest that as a result of the health and economic impacts associated with COVID-19, credit-taking is likely to escalate further in terms of the number of borrowers and loan amounts. Second, we contend that a growing reliance on MFIs will leave households undernourished, and further vulnerable to its disciplining and extractive impulses. Third, we argue that the interplay between over-indebtedness, pre-existing malnutrition challenges, and the global public health crisis of COVID-19 represents a major challenge to gender equality and sustainable development. Coordination between the Cambodian government, microfinance lenders, international investors, and development partners is vital to offer debt relief. Furthermore, to reverse the reliance of so many households on the microfinance industry for survival, inclusive socio-economic policies and public welfare services must be prioritised.We convey responses from migrant-sending households in western Odisha from interviews on migration conducted during the lockdown. The majority of migrants are indigenous (referred to as Scheduled Tribes or STs in India), come from very poor households and have little or no education. Prior to the lockdown, the majority of migrants engaged in seasonal, temporary migration-working in dangerous, informal, low-skilled odd jobs for low wages for a few months to supplement incomes at home the rest of the year. Lack of local employment alternatives is cited as the primary reason behind migration. After the lockdown, in the absence of income from migration, households with former migrants hope to earn a livelihood locally-with assistance from National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), India's public works program. Besides providing employment, NREGA works can include physical and health infrastructure which improve connectivity of health workers. NREGA works can also include community assets, such as facilities for irrigation, rainwater harvesting and plantations as well as child-care centers under India's Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program. We posit that in the long run, this can improve health, education levels and livelihoods of the local communities, addressing not only the immediate need for local employment but also distress migration in the future.COVID-19 is a disease with no proven pharmaceutical intervention and no proven vaccine. In such circumstances, prevention is all we have. The role of handwashing in the prevention of communicable diseases has been known for over a century, yet it remains severely neglected as a public health investment, to be periodically re-discovered during pandemic-scale infections. Over 26% of the global population has no access to a handwashing station in the home; for many low-income countries this proportion rises to over 50%. In other instances, the water is unaffordable or the supply has been shut off on account of unpaid bills. But when there is no water in the home or yard, or no mechanism for delivering enough water, good hand-washing is extremely difficult. Aticaprant Well before COVID-19, global cost-benefit analyses of water and sanitation investments, with benefits measured in time-savings as well as health, showed significant net benefits in all sub-regions of the developing world. This Viewpoint paper argues that, in the current crisis and its aftermath, it is imperative for governments and donors to prioritize and generously fund affordable, reliable, and accessible water services in underserved regions of the world. More than ever before, this is a foundational investment for health, dignity and development.Developing countries are highly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic, in part due to the lack of international support for ensuring progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet the mounting financial burden faced by all countries means that additional support is unlikely to be forthcoming in the near future. It is critical that developing countries find innovative policy mechanisms to achieve sustainability and development aims in a cost-effective manner. This requires identifying affordable policies that can yield immediate progress towards several SDGs together and aligns economic incentives for longer term sustainable development. We identify three policies that meet these criteria a fossil fuel subsidy swap to fund clean energy investments and dissemination of renewable energy in rural areas; reallocating irrigation subsidies to improve water supply, sanitation and wastewater infrastructure; and a tropical carbon tax, which is a levy on fossil fuels that funds natural climate solutions. Such innovative and cost-effective policy mechanisms do not require substantial external support, and they foster greater progress towards achieving the SDGs in poorer economies.This note presents three important facts on the COVID-19 pandemic and 22 developing countries, namely those in the Pacific. First, social protection systems are less common in the Pacific than in the rest of the world, meaning the region is not particularly well equipped to deal with the sharp decline in economic activity associated with the disease and standard policy responses (e.g., lockdowns) without plunging a large share of the population into poverty. Second, aggressive travel restrictions and effective domestic policy responses have spared many Pacific countries from the worst impacts of COVID-19. Ten countries have not had a single confirmed case. The experience of the region thus offers helpful lessons for other developing countries in keeping the crisis at bay. Third, the relative success of Australia and New Zealand in managing the virus provides an opportunity to pilot and test in the region what a carefully managed pathway to allow the tourism, migration, and remittances, that many countries depend on, to begin flowing again.
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