Dec 1, Reuters - Urban poverty is on course to triple in Myanmar, pushing half of the population below the poverty line next year, as the twin impact of the epidemic and a military coup threatens progress made in the past decade, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
The army seized power from the elected civilian government of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, unleashing political and economic turmoil as it tried to crush opposition and hurting efforts to fight the coronaviruses.
According to a survey of 1,200 households, the UN Development Program said Myanmar was poised to return to levels of deprivation never seen since 2005, before democratic reforms began.
A slide into poverty of this scale could mean the disappearance of the middle class as a bad omen for any rapid recovery from the crisis, Kanni Wignaraja, director of the UNDP bureau for Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement.
In the worst-case scenario, the UN estimates that the number of people living below the poverty line could double to 46.3% from 24.8%, while urban poverty is expected to triple by 2022 to 37.2%, compared to 11.3% in 2019.
Half of the respondents in urban areas said they had no savings left, while about a third reported having sold a motorbike, often a family's main means of transport.
There was a rising trend of households eating less food and increasing high school drop-out rates.
Yangon and Mandalay, formerly home to a growing middle class, have seen disruptions to small businesses and sectors, from construction and hospitality to retail and textiles, bringing job losses and reduced wages, the UNDP said.
In October, the investment minister of junta told Reuters that military authorities were trying to revive the economy, and blamed foreign-backed economic sabotage for the crisis, but gave no details.
If no action is taken, you're going to see this carried through an entire generation, said a UN official, Kanni Wignaraja.
She told Reuters that you lose a generation not only because of war, but because of the impairments and disabilities that come from a lack of food, poor nutrition, and extreme poverty.
The World Bank, which had predicted economic growth in Myanmar before the coup despite COVID 19, now forecasts the economy to contract by more than 18% this year, far outstripping its neighbours.
Myanmar's campaign against the disease started after the military overthrew the elected government, which had stepped up testing, quarantine and treatment.
After many doctors and nurses joined a civil disobedience movement at the forefront of opposition to military rule and sometimes on the frontline of protests that were quashed, services at public hospitals collapsed.
More than 1,200 people have been killed by junta troops, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, and the protests have grown into an armed uprising, causing clashes countrywide, according to a monitoring group.