The International Labor Organization revealed that the world's countries need to invest about $1.2 trillion, or the equivalent of 3.8 percent of their gross domestic product. To ensure basic social protection and bridge the gap exacerbated by the Corona epidemic, and to provide basic income and access to basic health care for all in 2020.
According to the organization, the social protection financing gap has increased by about 30 percent since the outbreak of the Corona pandemic. As a result of the increased need for health care services and income security for workers who lost their jobs during the lockdown, and the drop in GDP due to the crisis. Noting that the situation is especially dire in low-income countries, which will need to spend about 16 percent of their GDP to fill the gap, or about $80 billion.
The ILO also revealed that at the regional level, the relative burden of filling the gap is particularly high in Central Asia, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, at a rate ranging between 8 to 9 percent of its gross domestic product, indicating that at the present time only 45% of the world's population are covered de facto with at least one social benefit, while more than 4 billion people are completely unprotected.
Source (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Edited)
