The world’s poorest countries have yet to regain their pre-pandemic development levels, as the gap in health, education and wealth between the world’s most-developed and least-developed economies reached its highest level in almost a decade, the U.N.’s Development Program said yesterday. In the decades prior to 2020, rich and poor countries advanced at similar rates, but their trajectories now appear to be drifting apart. (Washington Post)
Our Take
Four years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic amplified the structural disparities between the Global North and Global South, both exacerbating and highlighting the issues facing the world’s poorest countries. Those issues had long been present before the pandemic. But the pandemic brought them to the forefront of global politics, making them impossible to ignore.
The disparity was most obvious in 2021, as COVID-19 vaccines began to roll out. In what became known as “vaccine apartheid,” the world’s wealthiest countries paid high prices for more doses of the shot than they needed, making it nearly impossible for poorer countries to access the game-changing vaccines. Wealthier nations did make a belated effort to distribute doses to Global South countries. But even then, that effort was so small compared to the need, and its effect so negligible, as to make it a token gesture.
And while the pandemic may not have had the impact on mortality in Africa that many feared at its outset, the death toll was disproportionately high elsewhere, particularly in South America.
Across the Global South, the economic effects were also severe, particularly for countries dependent on revenues from tourism, which dried up overnight. Meanwhile, many countries that were already heavily indebted took on even more debt to stimulate their economies and maintain social benefits during lockdowns. In the world’s poorest countries, tackling the resulting debt crisis has meant spending less on development, which only exacerbates global inequality, an issue that the U.N.’s report yesterday highlights.
Now, with the health story of the pandemic having—rightly or wrongly—faded from the spotlight, COVID-19’s effect on global inequality may very well be the pandemic’s most visible long-term impact. The Global South has already mobilized around the disproportionately felt effects of debt and climate change in multilateral diplomacy in recent years, a trend that is beginning to alter the balance of power in the global order. The widening gap in development between the world’s richest and poorest countries will only compound that dynamic.
Ireland’s most popular party, Sinn Fein, has slipped in recent opinion polls, losing some of its core working-class voter base to small independent parties, including fringe groups that have appealed to growing anti-immigrant sentiment in a country without a mainstream far-right party.
The rise of anti-immigrant sentiment, which has long afflicted the rest of Europe, is relatively new to Ireland. As John Boyce wrote in December, the recent trend stems from a confluence of seismic global events and domestic policy failures.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Australia for the first time in seven years next week, with the trip’s date confirmed just hours after Beijing signaled it would lift tariffs on Australian wine it had imposed in 2020 amid a diplomatic dispute with Canberra.
After years of tensions, bilateral relations between the two sides have largely improved since Australian PM Anthony Albanese took office in 2022. As Michael Clarke wrote in October, though, the shift in tone is likely to be a short-term fix, as deeper structural conditions seem destined to keep Canberra and Beijing in a state of tension.
Geert Wilders, the far-right politician who won a surprise victory in the Netherlands’ November elections, said yesterday he is willing to forgo being PM in an effort to facilitate the creation of a right-wing coalition. The move comes after government-formation talks collapsed last month. Read Frida Ghitis’ column on what could happen next.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken next week to discuss security and cooperation. Amid heightened tensions with China, including a standoff in the South China Sea, Marcos has increasingly aligned the Philippines with the United States, as Richard Heydarian wrote last year.