As the Ukraine-Russia conflict entered day 21, a recent report published by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said that 90% of the Ukrainian population could face extreme poverty and vulnerability if the conflict prolongs.
Talking to the media, Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, who published the report, said, “If the conflict is a protracted one if it were to continue, we are going to see poverty rates escalate very significantly, and could ultimately lead to up to 90% of people either being below the poverty line.”
As per international standard poverty line is generally defined as the purchasing power of US$5.50 to US$13 per person.
Before the conflict which started on 24 February, roughly 2% of Ukrainians lived below the poverty line. As per the UNDP, the development that Ukraine achieved in the last 18 years could be simply wiped out within one and half years of the war.
The UNDP official added that the agency has been working with the Ukrainian government to avoid an economic collapse and is aiming to provide cash transfers to the affected population so that they can buy food to survive and be able to meet their basic needs.
The UNDP report adds that a temporary basic income programme, costing about US$250 million per month, would cover partial income losses for 2.6 million people expected to fall into poverty.
Previously, Ukraine’s chief economic adviser Oleg Ustenko had on record informed the media last week that the conflict had resulted in the destruction of more than US$100 billion worth of infrastructure and the Ukrainian economy is bound to decline by 40% in the next six months if the conflict continues.
UKRAINE WAR CREATING A CHILD REFUGEE ‘ALMOST EVERY SECOND’
Almost one child per second in Ukraine is becoming a refugee of the war, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday, as the total number of people who have now fled the eastern European country since the Russian invasion began, passed three million.
“We have now reached the three million mark in terms of movements of people out of Ukraine to neighbouring countries. And among these people there are some 157,000 third-country nationals,” said Paul Dillon, spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), speaking in Geneva. Some 1.5 million children have now joined the exodus from Ukraine, at a rate of just under one per second, since the Russian invasion began.
“Every day, over the past 20 days, in Ukraine more than 70,000 children have become refugees. That’s every minute, 55 children fleeing the country,” said James Elder, spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Highlighting that nine in 10 of those fleeing unrelenting violence in Ukraine are women and children, UNICEF spokesperson warned that youngsters are prey to traffickers, as they arrive in unfamiliar new surroundings, UN News reported.
“To give a sense of the border that I used to visit—the main border, Medyka, Poland to Ukraine—it is scores of people standing around buses and minivans calling out names of capital cities—or at least it was a week ago—people getting onto those,” he said.
“The vast, vast majority, of course, are people with wonderful intentions and great generosity, but there is no doubt given what we understand of trafficking in Europe, that that remains a very, very grave issue.”