A Percent


100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0


Jan Feb Mar Apr


1.2 Average unemployment rate in OECD countries Percentage of labor force


14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0


2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 8


Source: OECD (2020), 'OECD Economic Outlook - All editions', OECD Economic Outlook: Statistics and Projections (database). © OECD Terms & conditions


Single-hit scenario


Double-hit scenario


Period of COVID-19 Pandemic


May June Source: ILOSTAT, ILO modelled estimates, November 2019, and Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker


1.3 Average response (with associated confidence bands) of the net Gini to a pandemic for 175 countries, 1961-2017


Change in Gini net, percent


2.5 2.0 1. 5 1.0 0.5 0.0


-0.5


-1 0 1 2 3 4 5 Years after pandemic events


5 Source: Furcheri, Loungani, Ostry, and Pizzuto (2020)/International Monetary Fund


Share of the world’s employed living in countries with recommended workplace closures


Share of the world’s employed living in countries with required workplace closures for some sectors or categories of workers


Share of the world’s employed living in countries with required workplace closures for all but essential workplaces


MAJOR IMPACT ON THE


ccording to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 94 percent of the world’s workers are living in countries with some sort of workplace closure measures


in place (see graph 1.1 below). The OPEC Fund spoke with Mito Tsukamoto, Chief of the Development and Investment Department of the ILO, who said: “The challenges of the informal economy,


where we find the most vulnerable employees, enterprises, and own-account workers, were already significant before COVID-19. And now with COVID-19, almost 1.6 billion informal economy workers (out of a total of 2 million) are significantly impacted by lockdown measures and / or they work in the hardest-hit sectors (wholesale and retail; accommodation and food services; manufacturing; real estate and business and administrative activities). We estimate that earnings for informal workers will decline in the first month of the crisis by 60 percent, globally. This is likely to have lasting effects on inequality and poverty that we need to address now.”


1.1 Share of world’s employed in countries with workplace closures, 1 January–15 June 2020


To put this into context, 1.6 billion people


represents nearly half the global workforce. • Read our interview with Mito Tsukamoto on pages 10-11.


The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the most severe recession in nearly a century and is causing enormous damage to people’s health, jobs and wellbeing, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) latest Economic Outlook. As restrictions begin to ease, the OECD sees the path to economic recovery remaining highly uncertain and vulnerable to a second wave of infections. “Strengthening healthcare systems and supporting people and businesses to help adapt to a post-COVID world will be crucial,” it says (see graph 1.2 below). The OPEC Fund spoke with Mario Pezzini,


Director of the OECD Development Centre and Special Adviser to the OECD Secretary General on Development, who argued for a new approach to cooperation: “A new approach to international cooperation


for development, more adapted to today’s objectives, context and actors should emerge. Sharing knowledge and resources is key. We need an ambitious set of coordinated actions tackling the immediate needs of developing countries, but also thinking long-term and globally... The COVID-19 crisis is showing us the cost of inertia and calls for the urgent reconfiguration of a more inclusive multilateral cooperation. One that engages governments on an equal footing to better manage and protect global public goods, whether it is health or the climate emergency.” • Read our interview with Mario Pezzini on pages 12-13.


What about developing countries themselves? How is the pandemic impacting job creation and economic transformation on the ground? The COVID-19 crisis is inflicting the most damage on those who are already most vulnerable. The OPEC Fund has supported development in Guyana, a South American country bordering Venezuela and Brazil on the North Atlantic coast, since the organization’s inception in 1976.


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