Category Archives: Poverty

Will everyone in the world have access to a Covid vaccine? – video explainer

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The hunt for a coronavirus vaccine is showing promise but it is premature to say the end of the pandemic is nigh. Several rich countries have signed a 'frenzy of deals' that could prevent many poor nations from getting access to immunisation until at least 2024. Also, many drug firms are potentially refusing to waive patents and other intellectual property rights in order to secure exclusive rights to any cure.

Michael Safi, the Guardian's international correspondent, explains why 'vaccine nationalisation' could scupper global efforts to kill the virus and examines what is being done to tackle the issue

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‘I want to give what I never had’: the trans mum taking in abandoned children in India

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Manisha was shunned as a child by her family and ended up on the streets – now she dreams of opening an orphanage

When Manisha walks into her rented room, crestfallen at having earned little money at work, her children rush to the door and cluster around, welcoming her with hugs. “When I feel their arms around me, my worries just melt away,” she says.

Manisha, a transgender woman who goes by only one name, is not their biological mother. She has taken in eight abandoned children over the years and now, aged 35, looks after six, two having recently left to get married.

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‘We made a promise’: fallout from UK’s cut in overseas aid remains to be seen

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David Cameron’s commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income to help world’s poorest in tatters

The former prime minister David Cameron’s political legacy will be permanently dominated by Brexit, an event he misjudged and abhorred. But until now he could at least comfort himself with one positive foreign policy achievement to his name. He was prime minister when the UK for the first time met its goal of spending 0.7% of its gross national income on overseas aid, and also enshrined it in law in 2015, so apparently entrenching Britain’s commitment to the world’s poorest.

Related: David Cameron and Tony Blair warn against cutting foreign aid

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Zambia’s default fuels fears of African ‘debt tsunami’ as Covid impact bites

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Aid agencies say debts should be restructured or cancelled due to the pandemic and warn other countries could follow

Zambia has become the first African country to default on its debts since the pandemic, leading to fears that a “debt tsunami” could engulf the continent’s most heavily indebted nations as the financial impact of coronavirus hits.

A hastily-arranged G20 finance minister meeting in Saudi Arabia failed to sort out Zambia’s debt, after the southern African country missed a $42.5m (£32m) coupon payment on its bonds in October. Missing another payment on 14 November meant a technical default.

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The Indian school where students pay for lessons with plastic waste

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Villagers once burned the toxic waste as fuel, but a pioneering couple’s radical education model uses it much more creatively

Every morning, students in Assam’s Pamohi village go to school clutching a bag of plastic waste, in exchange for which they will get their day’s lessons.

Akshar School, founded by Mazin Mukhtar, 32, and his wife Parmita Sarma, 30, has turned its pupils into ecowarriors by waiving school fees and helping to stop local people burning used plastic.

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‘People are suffering’: G20 to call on private lenders to suspend debt repayments

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At this weekend’s meeting in Riyadh, leaders will urge action to free up resources to help stricken developing countries combat Covid-19

From his house in Nairobi, banker turned financial vlogger James Mumo contemplated the state of Kenya’s post-pandemic economy. “It’s hopeless for a normal businessperson just trying to make a living for their family,” he says.

The economic crisis caused by the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns has left many struggling: 1.7 million Kenyans lost their jobs between April and June 2020, while 20.8 million borrowed funds using a programme provided by popular mobile carrier Safaricom, double last year’s number. One financial services conglomerate headquartered in Nairobi bought a yard to store all the cars it had repossessed after customers couldn’t repay their loans.

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World poverty rising as rich nations call in debt amid Covid, warns Gordon Brown

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Child mortality crisis is looming as nations struggle to make payments to west and China, says former prime minister

It is being called the “great reversal”. After decades of progress, the international goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 is in jeopardy, Gordon Brown has warned, as developing countries battling the coronavirus sacrifice their health and education systems to pay western and Chinese creditors.

“We need a comprehensive new plan that recognises the need for some countries to restructure and reduce debt,” Brown told the Observer. Ahead of a key G20 meeting next weekend, the former prime minister is calling for a global solution if an imminent child mortality crisis is to be averted.

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UK homeless charities call for suspension of ‘reckless’ eviction of asylum seekers

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Growing numbers face a winter of destitution as the Home Office withdraws accommodation provided during first lockdown

Homeless charities are calling for evictions of asylum seekers to be suspended as growing numbers are being left destitute as winter approaches.

While many asylum seekers were temporarily accommodated and tested for Covid-19 during the first lockdown under the government’s “everyone in” scheme, the Home Office restarted evictions in September. This group has no right to work and no recourse to public funds or statutory homelessness services.

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Lessons via loudspeaker: the students studying across India’s digital divide

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How do you learn from home without a laptop? Teachers are getting creative, but the pandemic remains a vast challenge

Vemula Deena lives in one of the tin huts strung along a narrow lane in the heart of Vijayawada, the business capital of Andhra Pradesh, in the south-east of India. Her parents are construction labourers. Vemula is 13 and wants to be a politician, enamoured of the spotless white kurta-pyjamas they wear and their public speaking.

But her school has closed its doors in the face of the Covid pandemic and gone online, effectively shutting her out. Vemula continues to practise her oration as she does her household chores.

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From schoolboy to tea seller: Covid poverty forces India’s children into work

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The pandemic has pushed millions of urban poor into crisis – and left children struggling to help their families survive

Subhan Shaikh used to start the day with a cup of cinnamon-flavoured tea, brought to him by his mother, Sitara, before he got ready for school. But the lockdown in March brought her salary as a school bus attendant to an end, and providing food – never mind tea – for Subhan, 14, and his two younger sisters, became a challenge.

Today, life for Subhan revolves around tea, which has become a lifeline for his family. After seeing his mother struggle, Subhan decided to do something and became a tea seller on the streets of Mumbai.

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‘I feel free here’: how a miracle girls’ school was built in India’s ‘golden city’

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A strikingly-designed centre reminiscent of Rajasthan’s famous forts will soon be opening its doors in conservative Jaisalmer

“Don’t even try,” friends told Michael Daube, when he said he wanted to coax women in Jaisalmer to embroider yoga bags to help them earn some income.

For the most part, at least in rural areas, this is Federico García Lorca territory, where marriage for a woman, as a character in the Spanish poet’s play Blood Wedding describes it, is “a man, children, and as for the rest a wall that’s two feet thick”. Rajasthan is one of the most conservative states in India, where ancient customs circumscribe a woman’s freedom and in turn any chance of economic independence.

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‘We are drinking sewage water’: Zimbabwe shortages threaten thousands

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As the search for water in Bulawayo becomes more desperate, diarrhoea outbreaks from dirty water are endangering children

It is 6am on a Saturday and residents of Sizinda, a poor suburb in Bulawayo, have begun their desperate hunt for water. The taps at home dried up three months ago.

Water has become a daily struggle in Zimbabwe’s second biggest city, largely the result of a severe drought last year which has dried up the reservoirs. The poor rains expected this year will bring more hardship.

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Progress in fight against child poverty could be wiped out by Covid, says report

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UN and World Bank call for structural changes to tackle the effects of the pandemic on children, who make up half the world’s poor

The world’s limited progress in tackling child poverty over recent years could be destroyed by the coronavirus pandemic, the UN and World Bank have warned.

“Slow-paced, unequally distributed” progress meant one in six children were living in poverty even before the pandemic, according to a joint study.

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London to face tighter Covid restrictions from Friday night

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No 10 also set to extend tier 3 lockdown measures to Greater Manchester as cases rise

London will be placed in high-risk, tier 2 coronavirus restrictions from Friday night as infection rates in the capital continue to increase, MPs and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, have confirmed.

The decision came as Boris Johnson was expected to sign off on the harshest tier 3 coronavirus measures for millions more people in the north of England later on Thursday, with Downing Street putting last minute pressure on local leaders in Greater Manchester to accept the changes.

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‘Drastic rise’ in Malawi’s suicide rate linked to Covid economic downturn

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Lack of specialist support and growing unemployment are factors in growing mental health crisis, doctors say

One Tuesday morning in March, 48-year-old farmer Lokoliyo Bwanali set off for his maize plot. He never came back. Neighbours discovered his body later in the small field where he had poisoned himself.

“The wife of the deceased said her late husband was under pressure from creditors and was failing to settle his debts,” said Edward Kabango, from Malawi’s Dedza district police department. “The deceased left his home without explaining to his family members where he was heading until he was later found lying dead in a field, a kilometre from his home.”

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Living standards for UK’s poorest plunge during pandemic

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Charity reveals over a third of families say they are financially worse off since lockdown

Living standards have plunged for some of the UK’s poorest families during the coronavirus pandemic, with over a third reporting they are financially even worse off since lockdown, according to Save the Children.

The charity’s survey of households on universal credit or working tax credits found nearly two-thirds had run up debts over the past two months, 60% had cut down on food and other basics, and over a third had relied on charities for food and clothes.

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We must increase lending to the world’s poorest countries now – or pay the price later

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Larger economies have been flexible and creative coping with Covid’s impact – the same mindset needs to be applied to helping poorer countries

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts Africa will suffer its worst recession since the 1970s. For the first time since the 1990s, extreme poverty will increase. The annual death toll from HIV, tuberculosis and malaria is set to double. We also fear a near doubling in the number of people facing starvation. Many girls out of school will never go back. Life expectancy will fall.

All this will fuel grievances, and in their wake conflict, instability and refugee flows, all giving succour to extremist groups and terrorists. The consequences will reach far and last long. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and G20 nations will feel the blowback just as some start to see light at the end of the Covid tunnel.

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‘Covid has magnified every existing inequality’ – Melinda Gates

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Pandemic could result in a ‘lost decade’ for developing countries says co-chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in stark report


The world’s poorest countries risk a lost decade of development unless leaders move quickly to help them recover from the fallout of Covid-19, Melinda Gates told the Guardian.

The co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has committed $350m (£270m) to support the global response to the pandemic, said it was in the hands of the global community to decide the long-term impact.

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Countryside fit for a superpower? Inside China’s colossal rural revamp

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Beneath the veneer of Xi Jinping’s ambitious agricultural plan farming communities remain marred by homelessness, poverty and unstable markets

The official pictures tell a delightful tale. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is seen touring fish farms, rice paddies and vineyards in Ningxia, ambling through lily fields in Shanxi, and inspecting mushroom- and fungus-growing operations in Shaanxi.

The carefully choreographed images aim to create a vision of his latest signature policy – rural revitalisation. Billions of dollars will be spent on revamping the countryside – increasing prosperity, improving its ecology, and integrating it with the development of China’s shining cities, which had largely left rural areas behind.

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