These days, in Italy and Europe, we are wondering, quite rightly, how and when the RRF funds will be spent. Yet in a large part of the world, for example in Africa, people are not fortunate enough to receive aid on such a scale, designed as resilience from the severe economic crisis triggered first by the COVID pandemic, then by the war in Ukraine. These two events have rapidly worsened living conditions for everyone, and have also caused gaps to widen at an incredible speed between the (increasingly) rich and the (increasingly) poor, between North and South and even within countries.
Certainly, today's forms of inequality take on an unprecedented complexity and cut across different groups: they affect income and wealth, work and classes, gender and ethnic origin, education and social conditions, individual skills and behaviour. However, inequalities affect above all one continent, Africa, whose World Day was celebrated on 25 May, the date marking the founding of the Organisation of African Unity.
In order to understand the impact of the COVID pandemic, we need only consider that it may have wiped out many benefits obtained by developing countries in the last quarter century while - according to the World Inequality Report - it certainly led to the 'the steepest increase in global billionaires’ share of wealth on record'
At first it did not look like this would happen. By the end of April 2020, low- and middle-income countries (84% of the world's population) had only recorded 14% of deaths caused by Covid19. Yet in the next phase of the pandemic, the Coronavirus slowly but evenly spread throughout South Asia, Latin America and then Africa. The density in workplaces and homes combined with poor hygienic conditions was a highly hazardous mixture. Large population groups in many developing countries barely earn enough to feed themselves and their families everyday. Governments therefore had to face a dilemma: had they stopped the economy, people would have starved; had they kept it open, the virus would have spread. As much as it was intended to save lives, blocking almost all activities led to economic collapse, which in turn paradoxically exacerbated health problems, hunger and depression. Then came an unavoidable debt crisis. The heavy damage in the rich countries was mitigated by massive state spending. However, poor countries, already heavily in debt, fared considerably worse: more than one hundred billion dollars fled the emerging markets in the first months of the pandemic.
These nations, in order to keep their economies afloat, have taken on debt in dollars at high interest rates, which they must repay with rapidly plummeting currencies. The pandemic has undone decades of work in just a few months. Numerous studies estimate that between 70 and 430 million people will fall back into extreme poverty in the years ahead.Thus, the most basic inequality, i.e. the inequality between the richest and the poorest on the planet, has been increasing again at a rapid pace.
Next, the war. The consequences of the Ukrainian conflict, particularly in Africa, are devastating. 'Stop' with this conflict, Africans seem to be saying. War is pushing up the energy and commodity prices, especially food. The war in Ukraine is a double misfortune and an often unbearable burden from an African perspective, as for countries already suffering from droughts or internal crises. An African proverb says: 'When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers'.
Africans know that if the Paris agreements on global warming - Africa's share is a mere three per cent - are not implemented, overwhelmed by the demands of war, their continent will be the first to suffer the consequences. And inequalities will magnify the environmental emergency. The third world war in pieces also dramatically involves Africa, in part because it is being fought on its territory, but also because of the effects of the world crisis on its fragile economies.
Editorial by Marco Impagliazzo in Avvenire (IT)
