is create a chemical. industry and. step. 3. students on. the. training successful. starts trying to transcend. the corona pandemic has so far cost half a 1000000 lives worldwide especially hard hit are countries with high population densities and the poor are also disproportionately affected in better off industrial countries germany and other european nations are spending billions to try and revive their struggling economies we are ask poverty on the rise is the covert cure worse than the virus.

welcome to to the point i'm peter craven and my guests are. who is a freelance journalist from lebannon who believes that the coronavirus is hitting the poorest areas hardest and giving some governments an excuse to restrict political freedoms also with us is don't you fellows own chip on the chin below he's an editor with t w business here in berlin and he says the e.u. is huge rescue package could derail european efforts to reset their partnership with africa and a warm welcome to 2 andrew gilmore executive director of the berlin based conflict president preval prevention organization of the backhoe foundation he argues that disease and conflict feed off each other so it is vital. what countries in the west

however cash strapped they might be don't cut back on development aid and peace assistance. thank you all 3 for being here today let's begin with you paul she pondered this is clearly a global crisis and we tend to say that it impacts everybody but it doesn't impact everybody in the same way once you take on that well clearly it doesn't i mean if we look at people in african countries the way they are impacted is very different from people in european countries here in germany there is the program for instance for those who have been furloughed and they can receive some money from the state and that's not the case in most african countries where most people just have nowhere to turn and these are people who generally live on the basis of a daily income so when that is cut away by lock down restrictions that also goes away so they are very very desperate so the situations in terms of how people have been impacted clearly extremely different depending on where you live there are those nevertheless who say that this is an opportunity for human humanity to rise

like a phoenix from the ashes you know in the crisis do you think that's in any way likely . i would like to be an optimist but from what i've seen so far i'd like to say not yet i think a lot of the focus in europe has been on trying to get the situation within the european union sorted out and if you look at the united states which is also struggling it is quite clearly the case all the focus has been on fixing things within borders rather than on looking at the problem as extending you know beyond other places and of course we all connected by cause of it but obviously it's allusions that are being created at this point are not enter regional and into continental. right let's talk about some of the facts here we've already mentioned the death toll this past 500000 people and for the 1st time in 2 decades global poverty is all new the rise is the situation quite simply out of control. it is out

of control actually in many countries especially in the poorest countries i mean specially in yemen. yemen they're not even testing they don't have even the equipment to test how many people are infected i mean the official numbers coming out from there is a 1200 infection and 350 deaths but there was estimates by the london is just for health and tropical diseases that there's over a 1000000 yemeni infected already and they're expecting that number to double every 3 to 4 days i mean in places like yemen it's a disaster i don't know what the world can do to help them what about your own home country lebanon tell us about that in lebanon it's also a disaster i mean the british ambassador a few days ago described the situation in lebanon as it's in a deep hole and it's getting deeper and nobody knows how it's getting out of course it started. with protests asking for reforms but then the coronavirus came and people south to his that jobs because companies had to close for a long time restaurants and all of this and so when the lockdown ended so there

were hits by another economic crisis in lebanon where the currency lost 80 percent of its value within a few weeks so whoever had a few savings before that lost their jobs now their savings are gone they're not worth anything so coronavirus with the economic situation that is made things much much worse people are saying that it's good there it's a bigger price for the country than the 15 year civil war that ended in $99.00 to you exactly i mean i remember in the civil war in this even in the civil war i give through it i mean i remember the end of it we were able to go to schools that we never had hungry now people are talking about not being able to afford meat anymore i mean even the army issued a statement saying we're not offering meets. needs to the army to the soldiers because we can't afford it anymore schools are closing private schools of course because public schools in the been on our i don't get nobody goes to them private schools are closing because nobody can afford to pay the tuition so kids left

without schools 1st because of koran i know because schools are closing and real based here in germany just give us a quick word on your take on how the german government is tackling the crisis and i think we can very thank you say that compared to the 2 countries that i know best which are the united states and my own country britain and germany is handling it remarkably well but but even not comparing it to that very low bar i would say germany is handled it well and and it is recognised around the world as having done so were these huge sums of money that are being spent is it enough is it too much is it not enough i would say it is probably enough in terms of handling the case in germany but is definitely not enough for handling it beyond that ok we'll talk about that in just a 2nd as we've seen massive sums are being mobilized to prop up the german and the european economies let's have a quick look at that story and we'll talk about it. chancellor angela merkel and french president i'm unaware michael want to say the european union from recession

at their initiative the e.u. is making 750000000000 euros available especially to member states in southern europe and. we shall continue to work together in the coming months to ensure that europe makes it through this crisis which will continue to affect us for a very long time to come. germany is also spending a lot in response to the pandemic to protect its industries which are central to the economy it's providing more than $500000000000.00 euros and in the united states the government on the federal reserve has so far made to want a half trillion dollars available to support the economy. but what about poorer countries how are they fairing. questions begin with germany and europe 1st of all this huge amount of spending that we just heard about does it amount to something that is going to have the kind of impact mark and a new marshall plan here in europe potentially for europe it could and that is

something that has been touched on but obviously it depends on whether you agree to it they are going to have the negotiations on the 17th and of july but apart from that we've also had a lot of criticism of the plan it just doesn't go far enough to help in developing countries for instance any marshall plan in the world today should do that and the german development minister get made well was speaking to media yesterday and he spoke about how that just is too little for developing countries you're talking about the european union extending all its overall budget for development by 1000000000 every year and that doesn't really go far enough he's calling for a stop light station program of 50000000000 euros so there's a huge gap. a lot of people say you know it's become a commonplace to say we're all in this together but we're not really our. no definitely not i mean take a look at the united states for example there were statistics that people from the

african-american community people in the bronx for example in new york are dying at a much much higher rate than they should much more than the white americans i'm sorry for the language but this is the truth and i mean take a look at germany we have we don't want to go too far where is that where are the the most concentration of perfections at the moment they are in the meat industry where workers work and in really bad conditions workers come from. gary are they all live in very cramped flats 9 people living in one room and there was a video coming out from one of the meat factories showing people eating in a cafeteria together sitting very close to each other without any respect to a social distancing you know there's the poor communities unfortunately now are being hit the hardest even in developed countries even in countries that are fighting this epidemic the best which is germany but yet we see now would have to be homes you know workers they burrs i mean they are the worst hit. area listening

very sensitively but it must be with some trepidation that you you you hear this about poverty being the poor people being the victims of the. of the crises that we're facing tell us a little bit about the how poverty translates into conflict because that's you know real area of expertise where poverty income conflict are absolutely linked and more poverty leads to much greater conflict and conflict lead to greater poverty say it's a cycle but we've not seen a 3rd element of this is that could be leads to is feeding obeyed and conflict by feeding off each other and this is a really wiring aspect and this is something that that we have the back of foundation are trying very hard in areas where we are most engaged such as in yemen that i mentioned and afghanistan is to try to get people to put aside their differences and to. not try to resolve them in nonviolent means. tell

us about the how important in that equation you've just been describing the aspects of justice and equality because we're living in a time where you know all the older figures are telling us that 2 things more and more injustice and there's less and less equality that the rich and poor are growing about right you know that is the key point and as you may know germany just yesterday took over the presidency of the e.u. but also the u.n. security council and i know because i've been with the u.n. for 30 years the germany on the security council has paid a key role in recognizing this point about justice and equality because at the basis of every single internal conflict around the world which the security council of dealing with human rights is at the core is this some form of exclusion or injustice marginalization that lies at the root of every single conflict and this is what we have very much hoping that germany will use its presidency of the council to to push that agenda is not likely to happen well i am not so sure i mean

the european union the european union countries are totally disagreeing about how this rescue package should go forward i mean as the fool go forward to speak of denmark the netherlands sweden and you know they don't want the pact and austria of course they don't want the package to go for go on as it is they want more loans for countries like italy and spain which would be benefiting more from that rescue package and so easily if there is no agreement on the european union about how they should go forward i can only imagine what they're going to do when it comes to talking about other countries outside the e.u. and this is exactly where i think the e.u. is going to lose out because countries like china have been very effective in you know assisting african countries at this point of course have had their own issues with cobbett but it's not been quite the same way i think this in a focus within europe which is also a very political thing because of. voice in a sense that we're trying to prevent the rise of populist parties within europe so

it's a hard balance within europe and for that reason there's a lot of destruction and that is also taking away from the focus that they could put into helping developing countries deal with the problem ok in nearly all the countries that it has in fact coronavirus has affected the poor more than the rest of society 2 examples now one from germany that we've already mentioned one from bangladesh. of attorneys company is one of the biggest meat processes in europe i'm seeing the largest cluster of covert 19 cases in germany. many of its workers are brought in from southeastern europe they live and work at very close quarters the virus spread like wildfire 1500 have fallen sick. the situation in bangladesh is not all that different it's garment factories also hot beds of infection many workers of caught the disease in the crowded ventilated

premises poor people more at risk of coming down with cover at 19 than a well off. you know we're going to go to ball now we're joined by our colleagues from tea w.'s bangali service he's going to tell us a little bit about the situation in bangladesh and especially about the situation in the garment industry and supply you have described that in the in the the items you've been writing about about this story you have described the situation as economy down poverty up tell us more. no but actually in a nutshell what i have written in that article that you are referring to is that for the last 2 and a half decades bangladesh's economy has grown especially in the last decade the country was really doing good as economy when doesn't overdo even down but during this pandemic things with outside dollars for example before go ahead one in every 5 people in bangladesh was poor and one in every 10 people was extremely poor but

during gov it economist speculate that the number has doubled so if you consider the total population of a $170000000.00 people 40 percent of it is a huge number almost a total population of germany then who is worst affected by the pend i'm making is it. the poor lancing or is it the middle classes as well or is it the society as a whole well of course the whole economy has been affected the main 2 pillars of the economy export income and inflow of foreign reminiscences have dropped drastically but if you talk about people those who are in the bottom of the pyramid are the worst hit while it certainly includes the poor it also includes a part of the middle class who were solely dependent on their monthly incomes and they are mostly from the informal sector like recently we were doing reports about people leaving the capital dhaka and heading back to their villages because they are not being able to afford the living cost anymore there. there's clearly

urgent need for reform further reform of the government sector but with the with the cash flow problems that are going to result from people from companies in the west not paying as much as they have been or investing as much as they have been that reform is going to be a very tough process. well yes definitely if you compare with the previous year the total exporter earning reduced around 84 percent and out of these export their own 80 percent comes from this ready made garment sector and 4100000 workers are dependent on this industry because of this endemic europe and the us the 2 biggest markets for bangladesh are also suffering so we saw huge order cuts as the industry is only export oriented due to this order cuts so far more than a 1000 factories are already closed down and those which are real and after this lockdown are running at limited capacity hundreds of thousands of workers are also

losing their jobs and tell us about how important the issue of remittances is which is a huge source of income for bangladesh. last year if you see that bangladesh expects in total wired almost $18000000000.00 to the country so but recently we have seen that the inflow of foreign evidences is also does declined in march they dropped by 2 percent we have seen and in april by 25 percent so and also is to messages that over 1400000 migrant bangladeshi workers out of the 10000000 who live in different countries of the world have either returned or are on their way back home due to job losses so impact there as well one last question i just just like to put here is are we actually seeing now in bangladesh people going home griese starvation a problem in the country because the u.n. food program food program has been warning that that is that is

a growing concern. well it depends on many factors bangladesh grows decent amount of food according to w f b there are a few millions are suffering from food insecurity and also the problem is transporters and what we have seen recently like during the logged on myriad farmers were unable to transport their harvest so they faced a steep loss that's why as the experts say that the government has to provide them with enough steam only so that they grow food and the country don't have to deeply depend on imports that's how they can avoid this family and what we are talking about but of course it also depends on how long this pandemic lasts ok samantha and i thank you very very much for joining us there from the former german capital bomb and let's come back here i had a very interesting impressions there from about working conditions in bangladesh we mentioned working conditions here in germany and much praise i think it's fair to

say has been heaped on people working in frontline professions like transport people who work supermarket tills nursing education and what have you. a lot of people are saying that these these jobs people who work in these jobs should be rewarded more generously paid better when the dust has settled on the crisis is that likely to happen. in this economic crisis even with this massive package that was agreed on that they will not lead on yet but in the you that they're studying now there will be there will still be konami consequences all the countries and i doubt that there will start talking now probably 8 hours is by they should because i mean at least in britain i know that the n.h.s. workers are not being paid better well and germany as well and all the nurses don't get paid very well as as good as they should be and this is one of the reasons there is shortage and nurses in germany so yeah i mean those jobs those people who people discover that they had important in the community only in and damage times i

mean they should be of course looked. dr that's a u.k. mention there under the it's interesting last 2 or in the recent days there's been a lockdown in the british midland city of leicester where people have been commenting on high levels of poverty high levels of inequality as contributing to the situation in the city how can that be in a country that is among the top 10 in the world in terms of wealth it is obvious that is always a logical impossibility but unfortunately u.k. has achieved that that's a bit of having the highest number of deaths in in europe and the western economy it is staggering to many of us that's going to happen. well we. do we need here when you talk about the mechanisms that do we need to debates about globalization and about the problems that globalization has caused how it leaves people poor people the people at the bottom of society exposed to forces out side

control where we absolutely need to debate but it is not the fault of globalization that we've got into this mess that we've got into this mess partly as a result of the empty globalist the populist blaming globalization for doing so doesn't that are being spent on in this country and for in europe a massive and rightly so what is being spent on trying to reduce the problems outside this rich area a tiny by comparison and this is i fear a shortsighted because all our indicators are that next year this may be a big increase of violent instability and conflict this will lead to more poverty more extremism and more migration so i really do feel that actually it is in the it's been in the light and self interest of germany and the rest of europe to actually dramatically increase the number of money the amount of money that is spent in these places it seems difficult to even imagine doing so at a time where we're reveals a cash strapped because of the money that we're having to do to spend to keep our

own economies going but i do feel that in the long run it is it will be very much in the interest of it to increase and i'm sure germany's minister would definitely agree with what andrew's just said there because obviously he pointed that out yesterday when he was speaking with the german press that the gap you know around $49000000000.00 is a 1000000000 euros rather less and you know what they use planning to do for at least developing countries is just not enough they are and he warned of you know a crisis in terms of you know more people migrating from other parts of the well just trying to get some of the prices even time magazine for example a very much an establishment publication. will in the us context it has been saying the time for global change the time almost for radical change is no is going to happen is it going to happen i would like to be optimist and says yes but i just don't see enough signs and the you know the e.u. rescue package is one example i mean what was happening in the united states is

another american myself grew up in africa so i totally understand i live here so i can just sort of see how things are working and in none of those areas in terms of the political will i don't see the political will to change things in the political world to really work together and come up with global solutions i just wanted to pick up on this and talk a little bit about how some countries are using this for the political does i mean we saw in lebanon how the government used the coronavirus to stop the protests because there were people protesting every day on the streets demanding you know want to corruption losen someone and also in egypt some people are being arrested because they are demanding better governance for their. you know using the koran i know. you know that a far from here that was a low passed by the government by the by the parliament i mean now it's been repealed by but gave the government or gave the prime minister orban power to do it

by decree and some opposition now and jos are saying even if the government of the pond has appealed this low but the government's the law has a lot more power than it used to have before i don't know how of course where it is ok to go and vote on constitutional reforms that might keep britain in power to 2036 but it's not ok to protest against those reforms because it's going on and it might you know spread infections so it's really being used by some politicians to advance their own agendas very troubling discussion with how the light at the end of the total people need hope there is like for europe i think we can safely say that for europe the the measures that are being taken provide an element of light for the for much of the world there i would say we're nowhere near state of life in the town and that is why we need to act now to help them understand question. yeah there's not enough light of the end of the tunnel for the rest of the world i mean europe looks like it's on a good path but i wouldn't say that's the case for ways or africa especially the

poor countries obviously. have to be optimistic or who will be able to fight anymore there's always hope there's always optimism just people need to push the agenda they want on that leaders. ok we've been discussing the link between the corona virus and poverty i hope we've given you plenty of food for thought thanks very much to all 3 of my guests for coming along today. one last word on. losing. well i think i'm with you believe it come ashore here and i'm intrigued to see how you were bring its owners or droid to. see how the e.u. rescue package unfolds because i think that will help us figure out what happens for the rest of the world at least from the point of view. ok thanks very much indeed.

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