THE United Nations (UN) Secretary-General is establishing a COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund to support efforts in low- and middle-income countries to fight the deadly pandemic.

On Tuesday, the UN announced that the aim is to address the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 through a multi-agency, multi-sectoral response which counts on the country leadership of Resident Coordinators and UN Country Teams.

“The United Nations system is fully mobilized, providing guidance for global efforts, supporting country responses and placing our supply chains at the world’s disposal. And to support our efforts, the United Nations is establishing a new multi-partner Trust Fund for COVID-19 Response and Recovery to support low-and middle-income countries to respond to the emergency and recover from the socio-economic shock,” UN Secretary-General, António Guterres stated.

“UN Resident Coordinators worldwide will be the drivers of the UN response on the ground, ensuring that the wide and diverse expertise and assets of the United Nations system are used in the most efficient and effective way to support countries.”

In his interaction with the media, he stated that the UN looks forward to the positive response of the international community to support more fragile circumstances which involve refugees, internally displaced people, people in the slums of big cities in the global South and people in very fragile countries.

“It is essential that developed countries immediately assist those less developed to bolster their health systems and their response capacity to stop transmission. Otherwise, we face the nightmare of the disease spreading like wildfire in the global South with millions of deaths and the prospect of the disease re-emerging where it was previously suppressed,” he stated.

Guterres also pushed for the scaling up of health capacity for testing, tracing, quarantine and treatment, while keeping first responders safe, combined with measures to restrict movement and contact.

He said that effort must be taken to deliver universal access to treatment and vaccines when they are ready.

The Secretary-General also recommended that focus be placed on women, older persons, youth, low-wage workers, small and medium enterprises, the informal sector and vulnerable groups, especially those in humanitarian and conflict settings.

He encouraged the designing of fiscal and monetary policies which support the direct provision of resources to support workers and households; the provision of health and unemployment insurance; scaled up social protection and support to businesses to prevent bankruptcies and massive job losses.

He lamented that there is still no coordinated action of all countries to suppress the virus under the guidance of the World Health Organization (WHO) and some guidelines from WHO were not respected in many countries of the world.

“We absolutely need an articulated action in which all countries join the same efforts in order to commonly suppress the transmission following the guidance of the World Health Organisation,” Guterres said. He reminded that even with financial efforts at hand, the COVID-19 pandemic is not a financial crisis but a human crisis and everything must be done to keep societies afloat.