NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

By Morgan Bazilian and Jay Lemery

While the media focuses on countries hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic — China, United States, Italy and South Korea — relatively less news emerges from the bulk of the world’s population living in developing countries.

It is good news the institutions established to build back war-torn Europe after World War II — the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund — do concentrate on the more vulnerable populations. As an example, the World Bank opened up a $14 billion fast-track funding package to address pandemic responses across the global south.

The United Nations is doing its best to highlight the grim prospects of those 70 million people who are displaced and now live in refugee camps or urban slums.

But there are no trillion dollar emergency funds, followed by even greater stimulus monies, set to land in the poorest countries in the world. Yet, they are the least prepared to address this and future public health crises.

Photo courtesy of Patrick Hendry.