The global food and energy price surges that have resulted from the war in Ukraine could push more than 71 people worldwide into poverty, according to a new report from the UN Development Program.
“Poverty, measured by the number of people surviving on less than $3.20 per day, grew faster in the war’s first three months than it did during the first 18 months of the pandemic,” The Washington Post reports, citing George Gray Molina, the U.N. development agency’s chief economist.
“As interest rates rise in response to soaring inflation, there is a risk of triggering further recession-induced poverty that will exacerbate the crisis even more, accelerating and deepening poverty worldwide,” the UN said in a news release.
The report concludes that “targeted and time-bound cash transfers are the most effective policy tool to address what it calls a “cost-of-living crisis.”