financial collapse – Page 3 – Desdemona Despair

Maps showing poverty impact hotspots as percentages of countries’ population that could fall into poverty as a result of soaring food and energy prices. Among those countries likely facing high poverty impacts across all poverty lines are Armenia and Uzbekistan in the Caspian Basin; Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Sudan in Sub-Saharan Africa; Haiti in Latin America; and Pakistan and Sri Lanka in South Asia. In these countries, around 3 percent of the population, on average, could fall into poverty. In Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Yemen, the impacts could be particularly hard at the lowest poverty lines, whereas in Albania, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine, the hits could be hardest at $5.50 a day.7 Clear geographical hotspots, depending on the poverty line, emerge in Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly in the Sahel region, the Balkans and the Caspian Basin. Graphic: UNDP

July 7, 2022

Cost-of-living crisis drives 71 million people into extreme poverty in three months – “This cost-of-living crisis is tipping millions of people into poverty and even starvation at breathtaking speed”

By Marc Jones 7 July 2022 LONDON (Reuters) – The global cost-of-living crisis is pushing an additional 71 million people in the world’s poorest countries into extreme poverty, a new report published by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) on Thursday has warned. Achim Steiner, UNDP administrator, said an analysis of 159 developing countries showed that […]

Map showing spatial extent of heavy labor losses due to humid heat. Per capita heavy labor lost (a)–(c) and population-weighted heavy labor lost (d)–(f) for the Lancet Countdown method ('LCHCC', (a), (d)) and the laboratory exposure response to heat ('Laboratory', (b), (e)). Panels on right show the zonal median (c) and zonal sums (f) of heavy labor losses. Maps in the top row show mean h person−1 yr−1 lost due to background heat and humidity combined with internal heat generation in individuals conducting heavy labor. Maps in the bottom row display 'population-weighted' labor loss, which is defined as the product of the mean per-capita hours lost overlaid and the ILO heavy labor sector proportion of the working-age population (ages 15+) for 163 countries for which the data are available. Shading around zonal median (top right) and zonal sum (bottom right) lines outlines the range of zonal values for individual years. Graphic: Parsons, et al., 2022 / Environmental Research Letters

May 30, 2022

India’s savage heat exacts heaviest toll on outdoor workers – Humid heat causes 650 billion hours of annual lost labor globally, up at least 9 percent over four decades – “This is not just exhaustion or discomfort. It is actually killing people.”

By Anjana Pasricha 23 May 2022 NEW DELHI (VOA News) – Pradeep Kumar can earn nearly eight dollars a day selling the traditional Indian drink with cumin and lemon that he makes at his cart in a popular market in New Delhi — supposed to cool the body, the beverage has been much in demand […]

A protester in Sri Lanka hurls a tear-gas canister back at the police officers who fired it, 19 May 2022. Photo: Atul Loke / The New York Times

May 22, 2022

Sri Lanka is the first domino to fall in the face of a global debt crisis – Will Bangladesh be next? – “I’m deeply concerned about developing countries”

By Larry Elliott 9 May 2022 (The Guardian) – The departure of Sri Lanka’s prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, follows weeks of protest and a deepening crisis. There is no bankruptcy system for states but if there was then the south Asian country – down to its last $50m (£40m) of reserves – would be first in […]

Protesters set a bus on fire during a demonstration outside the Sri Lankan president’s home in Colombo on 31 March 2022.Photo: Ishara S. Kodikara / AFP / Getty Images

May 11, 2022

Sri Lanka crisis: shoot-on-sight order issued as troops deployed in Colombo – Mobs burn more than 50 houses belonging to politicians – Ex-PM flees to naval base

By Hannah Ellis-Petersen 11 May 2022 (The Guardian) – Troops and armoured vehicles have been deployed across the city of Colombo and security officials given orders to shoot on sight anyone deemed to be participating in violence as anti-government protests continued to rock Sri Lanka. The crisis turned volatile earlier this week after pro-government supporters began attacking […]

SDG Indicator 16.1.1 Detected victims of intentional homicide, by sex (women) vs. SDG Indicator 1.5.1 Number of people affected by disaster. Research shows that violence against women and girls increases in the aftermath of disasters. At the extreme end of the scale, this takes the form of intentional homicides. Data: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs analysis based on Global Sustainable Development Goal Indicators Database (UN DESA, 2021). Graphic: UNDRR

May 8, 2022

Humanity entering “spiral of self-destruction”, UN warns – “By deliberately ignoring risk and failing to integrate it in decision making, the world is effectively bankrolling its own destruction”

26 April 2022 (France 24) – Humanity is suffering from a “broken perception of risk”, spurring us into activities and behaviours that cause climate change and a surging number of disasters around the globe, the UN warned Tuesday. In a fresh report, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, or UNDRR, found that between 350 and […]

Climate change impacts on poverty by 2030 in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Additional people living in extreme poverty as a percent of the total population, by country (left); additional people living in extreme poverty, by country (right). Climate change could drive millions of people in LAC back into extreme poverty. Graphic: World Bank

May 7, 2022

Climate disasters in Latin America threaten to drive six million into poverty in next decade

By David Callaway 26 April 2022 MANAGUA, Nicaragua (Callaway Climate Insights) – As Latin America prepares for another disastrous hurricane season, two major intergovernmental reports are pointing to the need for urgency in reversing years of climate-related disasters that have driven more people into poverty. A report by the World Bank this month said over the past […]

Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in Africa in 2019 (left), and top eight wheat importers in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 (right). Challenges for food security in Sub-Saharan Africa will increase as Russia’s war on Ukraine persists. Graphic: IMF

May 7, 2022

Russia’s war on Ukraine dims global economic outlook as inflation accelerates – Africa faces new shock as war raises food and fuel costs – “This crisis unfolds even as the global economy has not yet fully recovered from the pandemic”

By Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas 19 April 2022 (IMF) – Global economic prospects have been severely set back, largely because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This crisis unfolds even as the global economy has not yet fully recovered from the pandemic. Even before the war, inflation in many countries had been rising due to supply-demand imbalances and […]

World Bank COVID-19 Business Pulse Survey Dashboard, March 2022. Data cover 24 middle-and low-income countries. As of January 2021, 40 percent of surveyed businesses expected to be in arrears within six months, including more than 70% of firms in Nepal and the Philippines and over 60 percent of firms in Turkey and South Africa. Graphic: World Bank

May 5, 2022

The next global debt crisis is hiding in plain sight – With emergency debt moratoriums ending, vulnerable households and businesses confront loan repayments they can no longer afford

By Carmen Reinhart and Leora Klapper 2 May 2022 WASHINGTON (Project Syndicate) – When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, private-debt crises were probably already brewing—albeit hidden from view—in many parts of the world, as a result of the economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the war is pushing even more countries toward similar […]

U.S. soybean oil futures, U.N. FAO edible oils index, and Malaysia palm oil futures, 2002-2022. Global edible oil prices have soared to all-time highs in 2022 on supply shocks. Graphic: Refinitiv / Reuters

April 23, 2022

Indonesia bans palm oil exports as global food inflation spikes – “Sky would be the limit for edible oil prices now”

By Fransiska Nangoy 22 April 2022 JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia, the world’s top palm oil producer, announced plans to ban exports of the most widely used vegetable oil on Friday, in a shock move that could further inflame surging global food inflation. The halting of shipments of the cooking oil and its raw material, widely […]

Sri Lanka rice farmer Niluka Dilrukshi with his wife, Milinda, and their two children. They saw their rice crop deplete by 60 percent in the last harvest due to the government chemical pesticide ban. Photo: Hannah Ellis-Petersen / The Guardian

April 21, 2022

Sri Lanka reels from rash fertiliser ban – “If things go on like this, in the future it will be hard to find a farmer left in Sri Lanka”

By Hannah Ellis-Petersen 20 April 2022 RAJANGANAYA, Sri Lanka (The Guardian) – Driving through the verdant landscape of Rajanganaya, a rural district in north Sri Lanka where the hibiscus flowers pop out of rich green foliage and the mango trees are already weighed down by early fruit, it is hard to imagine this is a […]