Impacts of COVID-19 on the Private Sector in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is having a significant negative impact on the private sector in developing economies, and businesses and individuals in fragile and conflict-affected situations are among the most severely affected. The pandemic...
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| Language: | English |
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International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/550771606380666949/Impacts-of-COVID-19-on-the-Private-Sector-in-Fragile-and-Conflict-Affected-Situations http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34857 |
| Summary: | The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is
having a significant negative impact on the private sector
in developing economies, and businesses and individuals in
fragile and conflict-affected situations are among the most
severely affected. The pandemic has evolved rapidly from a
health emergency to a global economic crisis, spreading
through the real sector and posing growing risks to
financial systems. Notable sector-level impacts include
supply and demand-based shocks to infrastructure and private
healthcare; disruptions to imports, exports, and global and
local value chains; and declining agribusiness activity that
threatens food insecurity, all leading to financial sector
instability. This note examines these sector-level impacts
and provides recommendations for how the development
community can address them. It advocates, among other
things, for balancing short-term, sector-level relief and
restructuring efforts with planning for a medium-term to
long-term recovery, leveraging upstream interventions to
“Build Back Better,” and collaborating with governments and
development partners. As fragile and conflict-affected
situations face further pandemic-related setbacks on top of
already substantial hardships, it is critical that the
global development community prioritize support to these
vulnerable populations. |
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