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Poverty Reduction - Half of Poorer Countries have cut Health Spending since Covid

11th October 2022

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Some rather depressing research from Oxfam reveals that budget analysis shows that post-Covid health spending has fallen in around a half of the poorest countries and that welfare spending and education spending have also seen marked declines, with the latter falling in three quarters of low- and low-middle income countries. Worse still, debt repayments have risen to 27.5% of their budgets.

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As the article states, this represents “twice the amount that they have spent on their education, four times that of health and nearly 12 times that of social protection”, which won't be good for development prospects.

Even in developed economies though, the effect of the pandemic has been to widen income inequality in many economies.

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Graham Watson

Graham Watson has taught Economics for over twenty years. He contributes to tutor2u, reads voraciously and is interested in all aspects of Teaching and Learning.

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Poverty Reduction - Half of Poorer Countries have cut Health Spending since Covid

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Poverty Reduction - Half of Poorer Countries have cut Health Spending since Covid

Graham Watson

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