Due to pandemic pressures, the countries around the world are preoccupied with matters of lack of human resources, medical equipment, and tamping capacity of the hospitals for coronavirus patients. For the community 40 percent of the lower middle class, especially in urban areas of developing and poor countries, large scale of social restriction in dealing with pandemic means losing daily, weekly, even monthly incomes.
Being asked to take two or three months off, that means two or three months of lost income. And their government are not ready to deal with that situation. But in developed and rich countries, with large and strong economic fundamentals, turn out that not all of them are ready to provide guarantees to affected citizens, although they can provide any kind of the provision of pocket money, the provision of food, and all forms of economic protection during lockdown.
In other side, entrepreneurs, for the most part, did not really feel the effects of tax incentives and relaxation, because it seems to be obligations that had to be paid if they were producing. Then if they do not produce and employees are asked to take a day off but still be paid, the story will be different. Entrepreneurs will also be paralyzed. The conditions are very different from the top richest conglomerates in developing countries, for example, whose reserves may be very strong.
What are about medium Enterprises, SMEs, especially micro? Countercrisis schemes have not clearly been seen at all. The countries may not be able to give it in maximum capacity because of zero fiscal support. Pushed a little to the new budget post, instead it became a fiscal deficit. The only option left is debt. And on one hand it will be politically bad for the government, but on other hand it will be new target to corrupt.
With this picture, COVID 19 attacks, economically, accept it or not, directly to the heart of the national economy of developing countries, which are largely supported by MSMEs. If these pillars fall, shake the countries economy. That’s when injections from various major countries and donor agencies are needed. So the conditions are indeed very difficult.
People who are able to buy any needs, the money in their accounts is still abundant, may be angry, even condemning, why there are still those who work or roam around looking for a living. But for them, (daily working class or micro business owner), stay working is also part of saving life, or actually starving to death. On the other hand, they have not yet been able to be certain about what guarantees they will get from the relevant authorities if they are not active.
If there is no more room to work, then asked to take a day off, the choice to survive is to return home to countryside. In the villages, they can make a living in various ways, even if they stop working, for a few months at least. And it turns out that even then the mobility was banned, because it was considered to be expanding the pandemic to the villages. Then what else can they do? The situation is actually already locked down and stand off. The people economy is locked up. The more it moves, the more it twists.
What people requests from the government are to anticipate the spread of the corona virus on the one hand while anticipating an economic downturn that will stop many people from earning income, the business stop moving, then there will be an explosion of unemployment, poverty, living improperly, lack of food, including the needs of any installment, the educational needs, risk of education lost of the children, ect, on other hand
In what ways can the already collapsed economy be brought back, which plunges many people under such poverty, unemployment and hopeless lines? Especially if unemployment and famine spread? No body wanna answer. For example, in Indonesia, the 1997-1998 crisis plunged no less than 10 million people into the abyss of unemployment, which to this day is still unemployed, displaced after being laid off, competing for work with a new workforce, which makes them unsold in the eyes of job providers. Fortunately, there are online motorcycle taxis or online taxis, so now some of them can join in making a living. But in pandemic stand off, all of that little hope is gone.
The crucial note for this pandemic case is that the humanitarian affairs are not just a matter of health, but a matter of the survival of millions of people in decent conditions, not in tragically frightening conditions, without hope and certainty. To be healthy, there are costs. The problem, it is not borne by their state. And for independent isolation, there are also costs, and it is not borne by their government. The best way, it’s best not to judge or blame each other about people who insist on their hearts to keep struggling for a living. The developing countries government should take action to protect them with any health equipment needed.
The second, the majority of people, everywhere in the world, work hard, go home early at night, the reason is the economy, to become more prosperous, so that the need to be able to live healthier and more worthy can be fulfilled, so that the future of children born is more secure because there are costs for education and health, so that their lives in the future are better.
But there are many government of the developing and the poor countries clearly have no “more ability” to deal with poverty and unemployment well amid pandemic. More over if the 60 percent of the countries workers are informal workers, live in vulnerability, just above the poverty line. Let’s assume that their government wish to do all of that, but they have no capacity. So what if they have the authoritarian and non democratic governments?
